The negative effects of FRC
 

I would like to preface this post by making it abundantly clear that the FRC program has a net positive impact on the lives of its participants, as well as the community as a whole. I do, however, believe that this topic doesn't get talked about enough, and merits more discussion.


2016 was my last year in the FRC program, and I've been thinking a lot about the huge impact that it has had on my life. While it has had a huge positive impact on my life, I also think that there are many places in which the experience could be improved. This post might come off as rambling because I have a lot of thoughts on the topic.

This year I was the President of Engineering for team 694, which came with a massive amount of responsibility. Our team's places a huge priority on student work, trying to avoid the pitfalls of mentor help. Of course we have mentors, and we need them to help ensure the success of the team, but we do our best to keep them to a purely educational role, only putting their hands on the robot to assist a student, or to demonstrate a technique. The upsides to this system are obvious: students get to learn more, and get a more hands-on experience throughout the build process. The downsides are that this system places a huge burden on the students, particularly the leaders. To give an example of the amount of work that students on this team do, our CAD team does the entire robot CAD during a CAD marathon the second weekend after kickoff. This year CAD marathon lasted 36 hours with a 2 hour break after hour 20.

My experience as president was hugely stressful, and left me in a position where I had to stop and ask myself if it was all worth it. I have to admit that this year, during build season, I wasn't really in a good place emotionally; there were just too many things to worry about, on top of my classwork. On top of all that, my team made it to Einstein this year, which left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I'm happy that my team was successful, and that my hard work payed off. On the other hand, I'm worried about the implications of this success. Is it necessary for our leaders to push themselves this hard for our team to be successful?

I'm not the only one that has had negative experiences with FRC either. I have met many students (from my own team, as well as others) that let their grades suffer for their team. In fact, a friend of mine was unable to get into a college, despite being a Deans List winner at worlds. Of course it's not FIRST's fault that these types of situations arise, however I think it is important that they are talked about, and that FIRST does their best to address these problems.

Finally I would like to talk about competitions. Competitions provide an environment that implicitly encourages unhealthy behavior. Competitions start early, and end late. If you account for a healthy breakfast and dinner, this means that students often get 4-6 hours of sleep on competition nights, when they have to go work themselves to the point of exhaustion. Furthermore, at competitions, I have found it hard to allocate time to eat lunch. Lunch breaks (especially on the day of eliminations) tend to be exceedingly short, and that time is often necessary to systems-check the robot, and make repairs. Taking a lunch break, puts you at a competitive disadvantage, and don't even get me started on Einstein. If your team makes it to Einstein, you don't get a lunch break; You need to haul yourself and your pit over to Einstein field to get ready for opening ceremonies. I'm reluctant to say it, but I think FIRST should close pits during lunch, for the sake of ensuring that students eat.

Also... Airplanes aside, some people were throwing legitimately dangerous things onto Einstein (someone threw a large paper shuriken made out of several sheets of paper that narrowly missed someone in our pit crew. From the height it was thrown, it could have easily hurt someone really badly). Can FIRST please do something about the paper airplane situation?

tl;dr:

FIRST places a huge burden on students that can sometimes have negative effects on grades and health. Lunch breaks encourage students to skip meals, and airplanes on Einstein are dangerous

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I really only want to touch on this one point since I've been out of the actually being on a team game for a while and haven't been to Champs in about 6 years.

I've been a volunteer for a long time, and almost always would arrive with my family about an hour or so before anything is open to the teams. We also left about an hour or so after the teams, depending on how the event went on any given day. If you add the travel time to home/hotels into that, somehow we still manage 6-8 hours of sleep. Yes, a lot of that has to do with having the discipline to go to sleep at 10pm and wake up at 5 or 6am, but a lot of the "I only got 4-6 hours of sleep!!" has more to do with staying up late outside of the event. I was that student back in the day too, I stayed up and exhausted myself over the weekend.

On a different side of the sleep deprivation - it kind of lends itself to the real world. Sometimes you will have projects at work that cause you to work long hours for deadlines and get little sleep for a few days. Then once your deadlines are hit, you go back to a more normal sleep/work schedule.

So in short, I don't see a few days of exhaustion/sleep deprivation/stressful choices as negative. They are opportunities to learn from the experience so that when you arrive in the real world at a job you are more prepared for what gets thrown your way. :)

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

The lunch break thing has really started to irk me particularly when events run late and decide to eliminate a lunch break all together. This should not be the case. If an event runs late have everyone go on later but do not make students not eat.

Eliminations this year at the NYC regional was particularly bad for me. We were not the top 30 teams so they would not let us get reinspected before alliance selections. Instead after we were chosen we had to remove our bumpers (we had reversible bumpers that did not like being removed), get reweighed, and spent 15 minutes with an inspector trying to explain our pneumatics system... We then had to start prepping for elims get our robot fixed up a bit and before we knew it we had to queue. Food isnt allowed in the pits or queue so I had to go without eating.

By the end I started legitimately dizzy and I believe it affected my performance as a driver. I now have a rule to eat before alliance selections but whats going to happen when a kid passes out on the field because they had no time for lunch.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Almost everything about the original post strikes me as either something that can be handled by the individual, or is part of the specific team culture. I believe it can all be addressed without any changes imposed from outside. None of it (aside from the paper airplanes) seems under control of FIRST itself.

You don't have to go without food just because the field doesn't shut down for a lunch break. It's common (though not yet customary) for teams to arrange for food to be brought to the pit crew so they don't have to leave the venue.

You were not allowed to be reinspected? That's just wrong. I think you should contact the LRI for that event with your concerns. This is not how re-inspection has been done at any event I have been part of. All teams are pushed to get their robots reinspected after their last match, and the usual procedure is to have them show up at the scale with "bumpers on, battery out."

I'm sorry you didn't find time to eat, but you already figured out how to make it more of a priority. I also think that keeping the students from running out of fuel should be one of the mentors' responsibilities.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

The stress thing is something students deal with all the time, and it's not just robotics related. Back in the day, my school didn't have a FIRST team, otherwise I would have been on it (they do now though!). Instead, I spent a lot of my time in band. Marching band met for a couple of hours every day after school in the fall, much like my team meets a couple of hours a day during the winter. Jazz band happened for an hour before school started. To say there were days where I was easily one of the last students in the school and the first one there the next morning would not be an exaggeration. Sure, getting all my homework done around that was taxing and a little stressful... but it taught be important time management skills that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

Frankly, if someone is burning out from being a leader, it's most often because they don't know how to delegate, how to get something moving then step back and let others carry it on. There's nothing wrong with a student leader showing up, getting the meeting going and everyone on task, then moving to the back of the room to do homework. Unfortunately, what often happens is that student leaders feel the need to do everything themselves, be an active part of everything from the moment it starts until the moment it ends, and they end up getting burned out. The hard part is learning how to delegate, how to grow talent to compliment your own so you can step back a little bit and take care of yourself.

The event schedules are not really overly demanding. Thursday pits open at 8:30, close at 8. Friday open at 8, close at 7. Saturday open at 8, close at 6:30. As a key volunteer, I show up an hour before pits open every day, and I don't leave until after all of the teams have - so I'm easily staying in the building longer. Then after ensuring everyone is gone, I get to catch up with my team or meet up with some other volunteers for dinner (or just to hang if dinner was provided at the event that day). Despite all of that, I still get 6-8 hours of sleep every night during an event. Any lack of sleep is self-inflicted, or inflicted by the team, not by the event schedule.

Finding time for lunch is another tough area. You need to be able to delegate, to plan ahead, and if needed shift your schedule a little. Why do you need to be in the pit working on every little thing? Isn't there someone else that can do some work while you get some food? As an LRI, I know a lot of work happens over the lunch hour at most events, and I find it hard to leave the pits knowing that teams may need my help or advise. But I make it work. I ensure there's proper coverage at inspection (a trusted experienced inspector and my inspection manager) and I go eat. I also make sure all of my inspectors make it to lunch on time - I know some people that have a tendency to work through lunch, like a certain CSA that also mentors my team... I don't let that happen to my inspectors.

Einstein is tough... but really, I don't see what prevents you from sending one person out to grab a couple pizzas for your drive/pit team while everyone else moves everything, then you can all grab a couple of slices during down time - trust me, I watched Einstein and saw plenty of teams sitting there bored while we were all waiting for the next match to happen - plenty of time to eat!

In the end, when you're at competition it's hard to fit more than a half dozen people actively working inside the pit at a time. Most teams have more people than that, and any lack of time to attend to things like eating just means the team isn't doing a proper job in cross training and delegating. Ultimately, it's a leadership fail to allow yourself or those you oversee to go without eating.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Definitely! We plan on have food delivered to the drive/pit team on the dome floor. Would recommend teams plan on doing this.

-Mike

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I agree with Alan on this... Every event I've been to almost all of the teams have passed reinspection before alliance selection. That includes the 60-63 team events in MN, as well as 75-100 team divisions at champs!

The only time I've had teams remove their bumpers during reinspection is when there's an issue. I can do the math to add their bumper weight to the robot weight to know what the scale should be. If that doesn't line up, I can also do the math to subtract the bumper weight to figure out what the robot actually weighs (and I even use a spreadsheet to do all that math for me to make sure I don't make a mistake!). Occasionally the robot is a little overweight and we can't figure out why, in which case I encourage the team to remove their bumpers and try with just the robot, before they start making changes that could cause them problems. Often that fixes it - the team forgot to bring the bolts or pins to the scale when they weighed their bumpers, and that accounts for the extra half pound that put their apparent robot weight over 120.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

We all must ask ourselves: why are we doing this? No one is twisting your arm, there are no personal negative consequences for pushing hard, or taking it easy, or not doing FRC at all.

I think it's good for students to push hard and learn where their own personal line exists. I think it can be good to cross from time to time as well. Pushing that limit is how we all learn and grow as individuals. Furthermore it is great to experience this level of stress while in HS because you have a family to support you if you crash, and HS is not the end of the world.

Managing stress/eating/sleep is a significant part of any competition, athletic/FRC/auto racing/otherwise. Controlling how your team operates under these conditions plays a reasonable role in your successes. Having enough people familiar with the robot and pit operations to take lunch in shifts is a good idea. Not keeping your drive team at the venue later than needed is another good idea.

Do not ask FRC to make life easier for you. When you go to college, and then launch into real life, there won't be anyone there to make sure you eat lunch or go to bed on time. You will have to be responsible for these aspects of your life. Again, learning this about yourself while you still have the safety net of mentors and family is very good. Much better than screwing up in early adult life where the consequences are greater than in HS.

If FRC were easy we wouldn't get as much out of it as we do and the experience wouldn't be as meaningful as it is. All of these 'soft' challenges (as opposed to the 'hard' techncial challenge of the game/robot) impart very meaningful life lessons that you should take to heart. I would encourage you to not resent the forge of FRC for being as hot as it is, but instead to be proud of the fact that you survived it and came out stronger.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

One of the things our team has been working on is self-care. That means getting adequate sleep, food, and generally giving yourself a break when your stress starts to get too high. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

I don't think its entirely fair to blame individuals, especially students, when they have trouble with self-care under duress. This isn't something that's widely taught in US culture. If anything, we seem to wear it as a badge of honor of how much we can take. Even something as simple as trying to get a good night's sleep can be difficult on an overnight when your brain is buzzing from the day's excitement. It's even more difficult if you're away at a hotel. It may pay off in the long run to have the team learn and practice some self-calming and self-monitoring techniques.

Self-care is one of those places where it's important for mentors to step in. Sometimes this means keeping an eye on the tension level of an individual or the team. Other times it means having plans, including contingency plans, to ensure that all students eat and drink enough water. It's not easy. A little research and planning plus flexbility is key.

The only thing I can think FIRST could work a bit harder on is ensuring matches stay on schedule with some extra time padding, especially in the earliest event weeks. Maybe that means scheduling the first 2-3 week events with a couple extra hours in them. That will probably result in a decrease of the number of teams that can sign up for an event due to match scheduling. This isn't a bad thing if it means everyone makes it through without losing their minds, although it may pose some difficulties for ensuring teams can sign up for regionals or 2 districts events, depending on where they are.

It would also be a boon if the "no outside food" wasn't so prevelant. I know that some teams quite understandably blow this off. I also realize this rule is often imposed by the venue, not FIRST. But it does make it extremely difficult at times to respect the venue's wishes while trying to feed our team, particularly when the venue's food vendors close long before the end of a late-running day.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I was in out in the pits almost the entire time of our competitions, and I still was able to eat. I remember at the Buckeye regional when I figured out who are alliance partners were (Sachem Aftershock and FIRST Responders- thanks guys) I ran to a confession stand that they had opened, bought lunch, and shoved it down in 5 minutes. I didn't talk, I just ate and when I was done I went to strategize with my team. I'm sure teams can spare 5 minutes to eat a quick lunch.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I think this is tangentially relevant so I'm going to post this link here to the "Turning the Tide" report/website that Harvard, MIT, and other colleges have worked on:

http://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/collegeadmissions

I do feel like FRC is stressful but I don't think students do themselves any favors by also participating in eleventeen other clubs and programs while simultaneously attempting to edit the yearbook, school newspaper, and help children in Africa... not that OP did that or that those things aren't good but the priority for students should be on long term sustainable impact their communities.

You will find in life that pushing boundaries is hard and you can't push at 125% all year long without sacrificing something... eventually life catches up. I suppose it is part of growing up that students get to learn that. For some the lesson comes easier than others.

Anyone ever consider first is a practical life lesson?? If you pay attention the program will teach you more than how parts fit together, or how to figure out a back driving issue. It can teach you how to prioritize your time, which is huge once in college and or out into the real world of work.

As said earlier sometimes you have to push yourself to meet a deadline or whatever, but real world doesn't stop because your a little tired. Biggest difference is mom and dad won't be in your real world job to hold your hand, well that is unless your going to be one of those live in your parents house till your 35 people, but that is a entirely different rant.

Bottom line is FRC is a life lesson for those willing to learn the lesson. Learn to prioritize, learn how to balance FRC with the rest of your world.... And for the sake of sanity for the rest of us the present generation needs to stop looking for everyone else to fix all of their problems.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Your teams choices of how they manage their time cannot really be blamed on FIRST. This is likely not the most healthy or productive work schedule for students.

This is a problem with every high school sport - albeit not always to the degree that FIRST pushes some students.

Depends on your definition of success. If your goal is Einstein every year, then you should look at teams that do that and how they manage their workload and resources.

This should be the student's and the team's problem. Not FIRST's. Think of every football player who got pulled from the starting spot because his grades slipped. This is no different.


Agree with what's been said so far with regard to sleep. I get 7 hours of sleep on competition days and I usually go out with the mentors to do non student activities after competition. Yes they are long days. That prepares you for life too, I've had to work worse hours than FIRST competition hours.

Food breaks I agree with you. This was particularly bad at MI State Champs this year. Elims started at 2 and ended at 10 with no dinner break. I agree mentors should make sure students get food - that is one of our responsibilities, but it's tough when they're all in the stands for literally 8 hours.

tl;dr
Every sport is tough - so is life.
I like lunch too.
Meh, wear safety glasses.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Just want to point out that if anyone knows how to manage their time well, it's Mike and Team 67. They meet only 3 times a week during build season - 4pm to 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 8am to 4pm on Saturdays. And yet look at their consistent robot quality year after year.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I agree. Sleep deprivation is pretty inevitable in the real world and that's how I took it too.. did I regret every time I woke up during the morning of a competition that I only got 4-6 hours of sleep? Yea, but kinda had no other choice.. especially before Saturday cause of the scouting meet Friday night which tends to take quite a long time.

I made a rule for myself to eat lunch (or at least some sort of food) before alliance selection (since I was the team rep) after the Lake Superior regional this year. I didn't eat anything but a light breakfast that day, didn't eat lunch, and after the regional was over on the way back I literally crashed on the bus and other team members told me that I was pretty out of it.. ever since then I've been eating lunch at competitions. During 2015 I never ate lunch during the Saturday of the regional and somehow got through it.. TL;DR Food is good, don't skip out.. even if you are nervous about something eat at least something.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I noticed more and more top tier teams that cut down on their meeting times or always manged their time well enough to not meet 7 days a week. Next year, I am having Code Orange reduce from 7 days a week to 4 days a week. I noticed this year, our productivity nose dived after meeting continuously for 20 days, thus i think we will be a lot more productive long term by taking days off.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Ryan,

Thanks for the accolades, but I didn't really mean us. I was referring to teams like 1114 whose majority of mentors only meet on weekends, and 1678 who I'm hoping Mike Corsetto will elaborate on because I'd be interested in hearing it.

As for our 3 day build schedule, that is our 'official schedule' where all student attendance is required. It usually is accurate for the first 3 weeks until we really start building a robot. Until then it's a lot of detailed design hours that aren't always done on site. After week 3 we start meeting more often to actually build both robots. we add unofficial Monday and Wednesday meetings around then if there are parts that need to be made or assembled or practice bot needs programming. Week 6 usually ends up being a 6 day week. In 3 years on HOT I've only come in on one Sunday - this year.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

OP, I'm curious.

A) It appears you were focused on building a great on-the-field robot, and on getting far down the path to Einstein? Is that true? If I'm wrong, ignore the next question.

B) How do you think you would feel (then and now) if instead your last year/season had focused on getting as many non-STEM students as possible to try STEM things that they hadn't done before, while also helping build a fun, adequate, middle-of-the-road robot? If you did do that, along with everything else you described, my advice is to stop volunteering for too much bad stress. If you didn't, I'm sure that FIRST wants participants to use the FRC program to place a greater emphasis those non-STEM students than participants place on the robot.

Creating the robots and going to competitions is an FRC tool, not the FRC goal. It's very easy to shed bad stress if you look at things that way. Shedding bad stress, is a good thing.

Blake

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

to be kept in mind: teenagers do not always make intelligent choices (I know I didnt :P ). hell, adults do a lot of stupid stuff too. teaching these students how to manage their time in stressful, high-work situations like build season and events should be part of the FIRST experience - it's more than just robots, no? Although I do agree with the general sentiment in this thread, that most of these are not FIRST's issue, save the food breaks and paper airplanes, it doesn't mean the FIRST and the teams shouldn't be aware of these things, and try to at least mitigate the ill effects of FRC as much as possible.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I tend to side with most of the other people who have already posted that FIRST, FRC especially, is stressful, but that stress is good. It is through the stress that the competition feel really comes out for me. The level of stress, for me, is what moves FRC beyond the average science fair. Personally, as far as eating is concerned, I always put some snacks in my pocket that I eat between matches in case lunch or dinner winds up being rather late. I do realize that for the drive team especially it is often hard on Saturday to find time for lunch. It is usually our policy that we meet with our alliance at a table in the lobby and one of our team members brings food to the drive team so we can inhale it before matches start. Sleep, as the original post mentions is something that we, myself included, do not get enough of on competition weekends, but something all our mentors stress to us is that they do not want to hear that you are tired and need a nap halfway through the day. They encourage us not to stay up to the wee hours of the morning playing games and we always have an 11:00 curfew, that being said, I often struggle to stay awake on the bus ride home.

I too am a graduating senior and the team's impact on me has been tremendous. I hope that going forward you discuss the issues you found with your mentors because most of the issues you addressed, except the paper airplanes, were matters that 343 talks about at the meeting just before a competition and at the nightly meetings at the competitions and we seem to do a good job of not having a major issue with any of these. I cannot speak for Einstein as we have not been there for several years, but I did notice last year at Championships that the paper airplanes did seem a bit excessive at times. IMO they should set aside a time and place for the planes and ask teams to not throw them outside of that window.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I won't touch on Champs because I've never been, but for other events my team has a practice where immediately following the last match before lunch/dinner, however short it has been cut, the drive team and ONLY the drive team (with the exception of one or two crucial pit crew members) will go and eat, quickly at that.

Everyone else stays behind until the these people return to make sure the robot is in working shape, then they schedule out their meals however they feel like. I like this system because it gives the drivers a short break while handing over responsibility to those who won't necessarily need to be on/near the field anytime soon. Someone above mentioned the importance of delegation, and this is one example of how that can work.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

1678 meets four days a week during Build/Comp season. Wed/Thurs 6:30pm-9pm, Sat/Sun 9am-5pm. Additionally, we meet 9am-5pm on Mondays that the school has off (ends up being 2-3 days during this time period).

To set the stage, I am our only mechanical design mentor and I don't CAD parts, just review student work. We "get away" with limited design resources and limited meeting schedule by making purposeful compromises, planning well, and communicating outside of meeting times.

More on our design compromises here and here.

Some of our design review's happen in person, but many happen on my iPhone via the GrabCAD app at around 4am (when I wake up). I take some screenshots, highlight some things, and send feedback to student designers for them to work on during their own time.

We can't always hit the four meeting per week goal. Our robot design this season placed an enormous burden on our Robot Programming Team. They met closer to 6 days/week most of the competition season, knocking out bugs and iterating 2-ball auto. We are hoping that many of the lessons learned this season will result in established technical and communication improvements that lessen the burden on our Robot Programmers next season.

We had two or three very late nights for programming that ended up not being as productive as they were harmful to our productivity on subsequent days. We will be avoiding late nights next year.

I love the responsibility/stress of FRC. A quote from a mentor of mine:

"The seed of potential is cracked by the weight of responsibility."

The higher the stakes, the higher the payoff. That's the magic of FRC.

-Mike

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I was overinvolved as a senior in high school. It hurt my grades. It was the right decision for me -- fun to do then, and not a big negative life impact looking back from now. Based on your goals, a different choice might be better for you.

Of course, I did miss a week because of catching Mono. But, hey.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

That (not counting the all day Monday meetings) still is more hours per week than the average team that meets six days a week (Monday through Saturday). There is no way to build consistently very competitive robots without putting a lot of time into it...

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Biggest negative is definitely the time commitment. It affects almost everything else that I either enjoy doing or am already committed to completing.

- Schoolwork: Hah, no time for that unless you can manage your time like an insane person. While this is a good goal to strive for, it is very hard to attain and unrealistic for some. And yes, FIRST may look great on college apps and life experience in general, but very few top tier colleges will consider you if your grades are being sacrificed at the expense of an extracurricular.

- Social Life: I have a sneaking suspicion that many of us go dark in terms of our social lives during the robotics season. Not all of my friends are in robotics, and I miss out on a lot of fun stuff that exists outside of FIRST when I participate in FIRST.

- Self-Everything: Stress is great for short or moderate periods of time. Its what propels me to have an insane work ethic for last-minute projects and it lights a fire under me so I generally get stuff done. Surprisingly though, stress for an extended length of time doesn't do the mind or body any good. That's not even considering the amount of people you potentially affect when you're stressed, too.

- The Team: Forcing a group of people to constantly work (and sometimes deal with) one another doesn't do any amount of good for the relationships and friendships that exist within the team. Stress, lack of sleep, and other such byproducts of Build Season strains more friendships than it helps.

These are major things which have probably been discussed beforehand. That being said, eh, who cares?

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I would argue that it's both in the interest of FIRST and the ChiefDelphi community to encourage good practices and team culture. FIRST talks about safety culture all the time, knowing full well that team culture without outside influence is not enough to produce the optimal result. Why not do the same with health? Just an idea.

I agree that real life is tough, but I know someone who won the Dean's List award at Championships, but was unable to get into a single college. He's a smart person and was not under-qualified for these institutions, he just didn't allocate his time well. This is clearly a bad outcome for a student that FIRST has decided to give one of it's most cherished awards to. It's nice to think that teams and mentors will solve these issues by themselves, but that simply isn't the case. A simple thing like FIRST reminding students to pay attention to there academics could go a long way, I mean that's essentially what they do with safety.

I want to be abundantly clear that I am not asking FIRST to make FRC easier! FRC is a challenge, and it's the hardest fun I've ever had, but I am asking FIRST to healthy practices, as well as self-care.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

You're probably right. What are the average hours per week for an FRC team?

I assume we sit at around 22-25 hours per week during build/comp season.

-Mike

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

My team is not focused entirely on competitive success, but we do work really hard towards it. We also work really hard on outreach programs to help students learn, and spread the culture of FIRST that we love. We believe that competitive success grants us a larger platform with which to accomplish this. If we were a less competitive team, for instance, we would not have been invited to participate in the China Robotics Challenge, which has been an incredible experience for our team, and a huge benefit to FRC in China.

While there are positive sides to my teams competitive culture, as a team with ~100 members, there is a huge organizational responsibility that is given to our leaders. It's just hard to lead the team effectively without taking on some amount of stress. My school is also (by some measures) the top STEM school in the city, so it's hard for me to reach non-stem students, furthermore, our team is pushing the limits of reasonable size, and it would be difficult to reach more students within our team.

We met around 28-32 hours per week during the build season, and stepped it down a significant amount afterwards.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

A system were you have 1 or 2 co leaders supervised by a captain takes the load and distributes it a lot,You as a individual must weigh the importance of both homework and FIRST, I personally chose FIRST and would do so every time. Their comes a point when you must ask for help, you are on a TEAM! not a solo mission. Be proud, you and your team got placed in the top 16 teams in the world! hard work will normally payoff and it did in your case:D

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

when I was on 2046, meetings were every day from 3:00-5:00 (ok probably more like 8:00 for some people), as well as 11:00 (AM)-whenever people left on Saturday. Almost none of these meetings were manditory, though, except for some tuseday meetings. IIRC the hour requirements for team members boiled down to something like 15 per week, though you just needed to meet a total amount of hours by the end of build season. This is all assuming I'm remembering stuff correctly, though... it's been what, a whole year now? :P

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Interesting. We're hoping to take a different approach to revamp our schedule. We're looking to bring FRC inside the school day, 1:30-3:00pm Monday through Friday year round. Fewer hours per day, more days. This will get us about double the Fall training hours that we have had previously, and maybe half the build hours. We may add some Friday nights and Saturdays into the schedule as well for build season.

We're going to be shifting our focus from building great robots to building great people who are highly skilled and very educated. And if we still happen to get good robots out if the process, cool, but if we don't, we've achieved a better outcome than just the robot.

To win at FIRST (trophy and banner wise) takes either an enormous amount of time in which you do nothing else or you have to get lucky,which we never seem to do. To win as a team takes only a set of goals and a plan to achieve them, and a schedule that YOU set. I'm almost done trying to win at FIRST, and I'm ready to go for more personal and home-grown "wins". I want to get back to learning things and making cool things with students because WE want to, not because FIRST required us to or because we're trying to outdo those best teams that we maybe never will.

FIRST Robotics is a program who caters to those who are quick and sharp. It's not for every student, and in some ways, is not a great way to educate students, due to the intense competition and schedule. Other programs and projects can achieve some very excellent educational outcomes on much more reasonable schedules.

The amount of time FIRST teams spend and the level of competition these days is way beyond what it ever was when I was in high school. Back then, your average team had a reasonable shot at winning. Nowadays, you're average team doesn't stand a chance in my mind. It's become a competition of who can spend more hours.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I really overdid it in high school (to the point that I chose myself to be less involved in FRC my senior year). I really think that helped me with time management, willpower to focus, etc., skills that have served me really well in college and internships. At the time, though, it was hell. FRC was awesome, getting a few hours of sleep a night for several months was not. My advice to the OP is to step back as much as you feel you need. The team will survive without you (as long as you're upfront about your intentions and don't just flake).

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

The lunch thing is huge. Every competition I've been to in my 3 years, I've been in the pits nearly the entire time. I'm the drive train operator, so I am constantly in-between running the robot and fixing the robot. There is simply no time to eat. At a competition where we got into eliminations, I almost passed out because I was unable to get food. The entry guards were very picky about people bringing in food, so I couldn't get anything except a $10 hot dog. I weighed myself before and after the competition, and there was a 10lb difference. I am already nearly underweight, so that was bad.

Lunch breaks need to actually be lunch breaks, and students/mentors/everyone should be able to get food that has a realistic price.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Ensuring the drive team/pit crew get something to eat is the lead mentor's responsibility. How they do it is up to them, but they have to make sure that they are hydrated and feed.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Im incredibly glad this was brought up, and completely agree with the lunch situation.

FIRST participants usually exude enthusiasm about their hard work, but rarely talk about where to draw the line between sacrificing time to enjoy doing FRC, and FRC not allowing them to have time to enjoy. During build season, grades, extracurricular involvement, and even health(both mental AND physical) take their toll on both students and adults.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Yes, why would someone ever chase excellence? That sounds rather uninspiring. We should definitely all sit down and hold hands singing kumbayah, because anything that stressed you out too much is never worth it.

If that was the sentiment of a team that I joined in high school, I would have never stayed in or cared about this program past graduation.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

don't matter how well you plan lunch if it's cancelled due to the event running behind

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

1257 used to meet 5-6 days a week during build season. After a disastrous 2013 season we stepped back a bit to do some serious re-evaluation of how we operated. One thing we realized was that as much as we stressed out about not having enough time, we weren't using the time we did have effectively - our students (and mentors) were suffering from burnout and exhaustion, and it was leading to stress, anger, and a great deal of wasted time.

We ended up cutting our build schedule back to 3 hour meetings, 3 days a week, with the option to have additional work time if it was needed. It turned out that we got more work done in fewer hours, and without students failing their classes due to robotics overload. I hope to teach my students that more work isn't necessarily better.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Who, other than you, said anything about not chasing excellence?

The OP gave a fine answer that shed useful light on his situation.

Your comment seems to imply that you think there is only one kind of excellence in FRC. There are many, and few of them require a one-dimensional pursuit of a blue banner. Teaching students about them, and enabling students to pursue them, would be a fine accomplishment any FRC team could be proud of.

I remain sure that FIRST wants participants to use the FRC program to place a greater emphasis on those non-STEM students, than participants place on the robot.

Blake

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I've written several posts on this already, so I'll be brief, but you're not at all alone in your struggles, OP. I burned out quite badly in 2014 and 2015, to the point where I was legitimately concerned about my health. This year, I was forced to step back and do less, and it was certainly the right thing to do.

You, and only you, can determine what your own hard limits are. Find them, and don't push yourself past them. FIRST is not worth that. Push yourself within those limits. Push what you can do with the time you can afford to spend - always strive to be better! - but don't ever feel compelled to jeopardize your own physical or mental well-being in pursuit of FRC. It is not good for you, and it ultimately is not good for FRC (it's much more harmful to a team to lose a member or mentor for a long period of time, possibly permanently, to burnout than it is to make due with somewhat less of their time on a continuing basis).

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Have pushed myself beyond rational limits quite a few times I agree with those who encourage to recognize limits.
FRC is a great thing but not worth driving tired, operating machine tools unsafely or ruining your life over.

If you can not be competitive without taking risks too big you are not operating safely.
What risk is too big varies from situation to situation.
Good leaders know to ask for a lot and settle for the reasonable.

Feel free to disagree but there are limits and within that inconsistency, sustainability dictates you find common ground not push to a breaking point over and over.
Have built utterly massive systems: crisis managers love their emergencies but that means they get desensitized to what they lose being ruled by crisis.
Do not make the mistake of being a crisis manager it is no different than being an adrenaline junkie.

(Sorry about the double post I had to delete. It was a phone thing.)

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Let's remember the first paragraph of the O.P.'s comments... we all feel FRC has a net positive impact.

To say that you can get positive return without any investment... well, I keep getting emails that offer that, but somehow I don't believe them.

The investment in FRC does require some sacrifice... a bit of sleep there, some unhealthy eating there... maybe an occasional homework assignment that is completed to the "good enough" stage rather than "excellent".

There are many careers that offer a trade off between investment and return, too. For those who want to work 24/7 in stressful environments... you can probably achieve higher financial returns than those who would rather go for a bike ride on a sunny afternoon, or spend time with their family.

Learning a little about your own comfort levels while doing FRC might help you make some good career choices down the road.

You're right that there are some 'negatives' to FRC, but if you look at them as investments, and feel you've got a net positive return... then they aren't so bad, are they?

Jason

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I went from wealthy to poor to wealthy again by the age of 40.
Recognizing what you actually get for the work is the key skill to success.
You can work till you die and be neither happy nor wealthy for that.

FRC can give you a lot but there are limits.
So you have to ask what you hope to achieve and, if you lead, how you help those you lead achieve their goals to make it worth doing.
Success in FRC is largely not just winning because if it was this would not be worth doing for a lot of people.

As an investment FRC is actually pretty low risk because there is a lot of return even for those that are not the best on Earth frequently.
So not sure we need a crisis as much as strategic commitments.

Financially FRC is really a hedge fund not a short sale.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I think its fair to say that not every team, especially ours, can follow a schedule like Team 67 or 1114, if what youre referencing is true.
We meet 7 days a week and they pretty long per day. In fact, its the opposite for us where I can count on my fingers the last 10 years we took a Sunday off (Superbowl Sunday included for some).
The biggest factor is mentor experience and not every team has that level of talent relatively speaking.
We definitely rank among the best when it comes to commitment, desire, and a determination to succeed. However, we spend way too many hours trying to overcome talent in trying to do so.
There is a lot of pressure when you spend lots of money to attend regionals and the robot never coming back to your shop (and no 2nd robot) from end of build season to the middle of May.
If I had one suggestion that would put the situations described by the OP on FIRST, it would be to provide resources/suggestions to teams on how to address some of them. Many newer/rookie teams have leaned on veteran teams for suggestions....I get that. But perhaps coming from FIRST it would do a whole lot more for the FRC community.

Teams with experience and resources have a huge advantage when it comes to FRC tournament logistics. They can focus more on the competition, strategy and scouting vs. those that dont........including making sure students stay hydrated/fed.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

This is so true!
In addition, teams are competing in more events than the normal 1-2 in a season back in the day.
Districts imo have created a great inequality both with respect to cost and play time vs. teams that compete in regionals. We have to work so much harder to get equal playing time!

Wait til bag/tag is eliminated (assuming here), you can bet that the average team of old wont have a shot at making eliminations.:o

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

The level of stress and pressure along with necessary amount of preparation, strategy, and dedication are what set FRC apart from almost all other non- athletic competitions. This is why Robotics is the only organization in our school where I would compare our team's successes to those of other school sports teams.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Planning well doesn't involve relying on the lunch break. This should be better advertised to rookie teams especially, but hopefully most veteran mentors understand how unreliable it is.

Fortunately, even in small (district-size) events, teams don't play every match. There's is always a way to get everyone fed, but you need to prioritize and plan and/or adapt well. I've been pit lead/supervisor and operator/coach simultaneously, as both student and mentor, leading understaffed crews through dozens events ranging from small districts to Einstein and including full elim runs with major lunchtime robot rebuilds. More illustratively, I've been a referee (dual-hatted inspector) at events that don't have a backup ref and cancelled the lunch break. Meaning we literally must be reffing every single match that's played--and we still eat at resets. Don't just give up; it takes teamwork but you can't simply write off teammate health. (This isn't to say I haven't previously written off my own nutrition, sometimes because I was wrong and sometimes because I'd get nauseous.)

Don't trust the lunch break and don't trust the venue guards or food lines or unknown prices. Sometimes lunch/dinner means taking food into venues (which is not always feasible), squirreling it away in robot carts (more foolproof), eating at odd times, and/or darting through labyrinths or out side doors to scarf down food outside of the venue area (very common). Middle-of-nowhere venues often require excellent planning, twenty-minute drives by food runners, or good inter-team cooperation. Sometimes food/hydration just involves asking authorities nicely, and occasionally it even unfortunately reaches the paramedics (especially a problem for hydration). As with eveything it usually involves teamwork and should have contingency plans--this will become unremarkably automatic for your team over time.

I'm not saying FIRST's system is at all perfect, but we can't abdicate responsibly just because there's something to complain about. FIRST is part of real life, particularly when you're dealing with real students' health. We can help FIRST improve the system, but we can't just blame them and wait.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

On the tangent of lunch during FRC, it's basically impossible to fit it in if you're in the pits. One novel solution that my buddy / Shaker's drive coach Max uses is that Soylent meal replacement drink. He just brings a 12 pack of that stuff to every competition he goes to, and each time he needs a meal, he chugs one. Takes like five seconds to drink and you're back to work, and it's probably of better nutritional value than whatever greasy venue food you'd have to wait in line for 20 minutes to eat anyway. I'm not generally a fan of Soylent but this seems like a really nice application for the product and I'll be investing in a case of the stuff for next season.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

In the fall, I had some unfortunately timed classes that went right through lunchtime, so I gave Soylent (v1.5) a try on the recommendation from a professor of mine whose diet is ~60% Soylent. It's pretty amazing - it basically tastes like pancake batter and then you're no longer hungry. I stopped once those classes ended because I prefer regular food, but it's a pretty cool product. It hadn't occurred to me to use it for FRC, but I think it's an awesome application, especially for those who wouldn't eat otherwise.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Upon further reflection, I wanted to address the work-life balance you're talking about. This of course is not FIRST's responsibility. It is something that everyone needs to work out for themselves. A team's culture and your role within the team will have a lot to do with how much pressure you face from FRC.

Beyond that, it's been my experience that working in STEM fields can get super competitive, particularly in an educational setting. There is a lot of ego tied up with how quickly, how devotedly, and how thoroughly one groks <insert favorite STEM subject here>. IMO this attitude can be quite discouraging to certain personality types, even though it may provide drive to other personality types. Some of the worst tolls it can take are:
* poor work-life balance
* unhealthily unrealistic achievement expectations
* insulation from peers driven by professional jealousy
* valuing outcomes over process

Thankfully FIRST seems to be less prone to this but it is not immune. You see it when students, mentors, and volunteers sacrifice basic needs and relationships to keep a team or an event going. You see it in unfounded accusations of cheating towards high achieving teams. You see it when teams are more interested in banners than in their students becoming passionate and healthy people.

The C in FRC is for competion. Sometimes we lose track of why we're competing. It's not supposed to be about ego. Competition is supposed to be a carrot to drive learning and practicing skills. No one should have to put a whole team's season on their back. And, should you find yourself there, there is no shame in setting reasonable boundaries, even if it means lowering the team's expectations. There will be disappointment but dealing with disappointment is also part of life.

The venue at Worlds is so big I think teams need to self enforce this. I find it very rude when people are throwing things, especially during or between matches or when someone is at the podium. Much worse if it's something that could actually hurt someone (did we leave safety in the pit?)

Maybe it would help if FIRST had an area set up dedicated to people to flying paper airplanes. Maybe a contest for who can fly furthest?

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I should mention that the op's team goes to an extremely high pressure elite high school in NYC. The work load there is probably 4-5 times or more the work load anyone is used to.

That said I wonder why he does have so much responsibility. Their team is gigantic. Perhaps the issue isn't frc being too strenuous but rather that there needs to be better delegation of responsibilities.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

To an extent I disagree:
FIRST certainly does things that can drive consequences to teams and that are well within their control, in fact, in some cases only FIRST can control these things:

The 6 week build season.
The times at events.
The way events operate.
Bag & Tag.

All of these things are directly the responsibility of FIRST and only FIRST.
That said a person can make this much worse for themselves easily.

As someone that has routinely watched interest in FRC evaporate over the expectations it brings along: I don't worry too much that FIRST seems dead-set on maintaining the status quo. Like any situation these decisions cause a trade off with these choices they drive and that creates limits. FRC will be bound by these limits and it's not for me to judge if that's good or bad. FRC still drives value as it is.

The issue, I think, is that as teams try to break the limits of what FRC is, there is an exponential curve and the closer to straight up at the end you get, the more unrealistic the restrictions on FRC become except in a very specific set of circumstances. There are definitely aspects of FRC, in particular among the FIRST competitions, that favor a strong year round educational setting beyond simply FRC itself. If one tries to cram that education into just the FRC package it will become unworkable at some point without an increasingly unlikely set of circumstances existing. Therefore I have found that sometimes teams are more successful if they concentrate less on more education within the FRC construct and more on the design of their robot even if they resort to largely hand tools.

In the end, where we agree, is that you need to do what is right for you:
If FRC is causing you pain then it's time to re-evaluate whether you can align to the limits of FRC.
If one can't - don't expect FRC to adapt you - over 20 years I've discovered that FRC, when confronted with problems, has gotten just big enough that it can take far more than voting and even evidence to get alteration in direction.
To some extent this inertia is logical: FRC wants to grow and thrive but it can't do that if it breaks with the status quo too much, or else FIRST will make the mixture for success hard to determine even for the veteran teams.

Written by me, speaking for me, as someone with 20+ years of experience with FRC in particular, getting close to 10 years of experience with FLL and 2 years of FTC. Keep FRC11/FRC193 out of this <- it is not wrong to talk about the limits of a system even a system called FIRST.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

This is true. However, I believe that the time limits and access to robots is meant to keep a lid on the ever-escalating desire for teams to pour even more time and resources into FRC. Whether or not you or I believe FIRST's limits are having the desired effect is another story.

As you noted, FIRST does not, and in some cases cannot, limit other inequities such as access to facilities, tools, experienced mentors, or a school system with a strong STEM program. Teams that have less access often find themselves trying to make the difference up in effort. As it is, there are teams that find legal loopholes in the time limits and still end up meeting 20+ hours a week through competition season. And it works. If you lack the theoretical knowledge to design a mechanism, you can usually figure it out through a lot of trial and error. If you don't have sophicated tools to rapidly fabricate high precision parts, you can use cruder tools much more slowly, probably taking multiple attempts.

We all know the teams who win banners year after year after year. I don't expect it's because they are inherently brighter or that they work harder than everyone else. It's more likely these are teams who are blessed to have some kind of knowledge-based, service, and/or material advantage. And I don't blame them at all. But this imbalance ends up putting tremendous pressure on the teams who are competing with them. In order to even have a chance at some kind of recognition, they have to throw everything they've got and then some into build and competition. Even then, they still may not get it.

I can see how diffiicult it must be for FIRST balance a level playing field versus allowing teams to use their unique circumstance to reach their potential. Someone much smarter than me will have to figure out how to solve inequity.

All I meant by one's work-life balance not being FIRST's responsibility is that work-life balance should be taken in a greater context than FIRST. For all things in life, we evaulate the effort, prioritize its meaning to us, and make choices. How you choose to value FRC, how much effort you choose to give it, and how that impacts your time and energy elsewhere is strictly up to you.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

As someone who threw their life at a team my Junior and Senior years of high school (my 2nd and 3rd years respectively on the team) I can attest that it was a lot of time and a lot of commitment. But I loved every moment of it!

Would I have had more time to study and do homework had I not been on an FRC team that pulled 9 hours in weekdays and a 9 hour Saturday during build season? Absolutely yes, but knowing how I feel about school and always have felt about it I almost would've certainly just used that time to play video games and hangout with friends and put the same amount of work in.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

Anybody else generally gain weight during build season?

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

You know in college I took a class called: "Stress management through exercise"

I have often thought it might be wise to engage in exercise at least once a day as part of FIRST activities.
If one can justify pushing this hard, why not accept that this body and mind are linked.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/exerc...s-scott-lister

Years ago I walked with a cane because I hurt myself moving a very large printer.
I never got proper physical therapy because my employer ran interference.
It took 1 week before I could walk.
1 year before I wasn't periodically in a bad pain.
2 years before I only really dealt with pain in the morning and when lifting things badly.
3 years before random lifting couldn't cause spasms.
5 years later sometimes I had to walk hunched over in the morning.

Finally this year I got physical therapy at my expense and with some simple targeted exercises I am much better.
It's worth it to spend that few minutes even if you don't have chronic pain.

I think of weight gain as your body's way of planning for extremely unstable situations: missed meals, lower quality food, broken sleep patterns, longs periods of unusual activity.
Considering I weigh 300lbs at 6'3" and have weighed at least 240lbs since I was 14 and I've been working since I was 10: that should probably say something about doing crazy things, sitting around doing them and body weight.

Re: The negative effects of FRC
 

I'd like to add also that this is a great opportunity for alumni of your team, depending on your team culture. Personally, I helped found my team as a senior ('14-'15 school year - Recycle Rush), and, due to our small team, was chosen as both Drive Coach & Team Captain. That put a lot of stress and pressure on me, and I too went without lunch one day, didn't sleep well, etc - not because of lack of support, but because as a rookie team we didn't know what we were getting into in a lot of ways.
This year, I attended college 3 hours away from my high school, but decided to long-distance mentor my team, and that I felt extremely passionate about making sure that students didn't get burned out & had realistic jobs. My main projects during the year were:

• Fall: Define the roles on the team and run them by the other mentors
• December: Present these roles to the team
• Kickoff: Right after Kickoff, I interviewed the students and conferred with mentors to assign roles
• Competition: Support the team leaders

To elaborate, our team was small and we all agreed to have mentors appoint team leads in different areas.
During competitions, as a new mentor, I told our lead mentor that I planned to work closely with the drive team, and that paid off. I walked with them to queue to keep nerves down, especially when our robot had problems. With our very small team, our Drive Coach was also one of our strongest members in the pit, and could have burned himself out; at one point, I pulled our pit mentors aside, and we basically banned the drive team from the pit for around 45 minutes so I could bring them to lunch and not let them rush through or go hungry. We also had to tell the team captain to leave the pit for a little while, because she hadn't let herself take a break either. We had to be more careful with rotating our pit crew, even with only 7 team members.

Parents were also great, arranging dinner plans one day when we mentors were nearly burned out as well, which was really helpful.


I think that in many ways, FIRST attracts perfectionists and those who are likely to develop such laser focus and determination bordering on stubbornness that they forego such things as food and sleep. **(This applies both to students & mentors) Once our team recognized that, we could start taking steps to prevent hunger, tiredness, and burnout.

TL;DR: A college or alum mentor is a great team-wrangler. Watch for perfectionists that may set themselves up for burnout.


**Note: I say this lovingly, and am in no way trying to place blame on the participants. It's something I've learned about myself from experience, and I notice it in members of my own team.