Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Having some issue with our school's admin with regards to build schedule. Comes down to them not wanting us in the building on Sundays, as well as wanting us to scale back our hours.
During season we run:

• Friday: 4-9
• Saturday: 8-9
• Sunday: 8-9
• Monday: 4-8

We don't tend work much during the week, as our mentors are not able to get to the school.

Anyways, was wondering how the rest of you organized your build season, trying to see if there are any better was of organizing/showing the administration how much time other teams put in.

Thanks,

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

When I was on 1058 we ran 6-10 every weekday, and 9-4 on Saturdays. No meetings on Sunday's.

229 meets on Tuesdays and Thursday's from 6-8 and Saturdays from 9-4. This is mainly due to the fact that the mentor base is college students.

In the end any amount of time can work, just be smart about how you use it.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Some people stay later most nights
M-Th 3-6
Friday 3-8
Saturday 1-8
Sunday 10-5

It all depends on what works for your team.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

First three weeks: Tue & Thurs 4-8ish, Sat 9-3ish
Last three weeks: add another weekday or two

We meet, on average, about 20hr/week. Someone we still manage to make a robot.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Our team runs the first 2 weeks like so:
Mon-Thur 3:30-6 unofficial, 6-8:30/9:00 officially
Sat 9-4:30

The last four weeks get a tad bit more intense:
Mon-Fri 3:30-6 unofficial, 6-9:00 official
Sat 9-5

By unofficial I mean that when homework is done, students get right into work, official is the official meeting when everyone is there. The more dedicated students go 3:30/4-8:30/9.

Officially, this works out to about 20.5 meeting hours per week, plus 12.5 hours for some students working when they can.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Jays schedule pretty sums up 1058 and during my time on 1519 we held similar hours.

3467 had more 3-6/3-8 week days with 9 to 5 on Saturdays. We kept Sundays off until the last weekends of build. After two years we took off Wednesdays to give everyone a break. 2015 with more mentors working all day we moved to evenings 6-9 keeping Wednesdays off and kept our weekend hours the same.

No two teams are alike but just looking in from the outside those are a lot of hours compared to most teams who stick to 3-4 hour weekdays and one maybe two 8 hour days on the weekend. If you aren't utilizing all of those hours effectively consider taking a day off or trimming down some hours (for the first few weeks of build season).

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Wed 6-9
Thurs 6-9
Saturday 9-5(sometimes later)
Sunday 9-5(sometimes later)
Monday holidays 9-5

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Monday, tuesday, thursday: 2:30 - 5:30

Wednesday: 5:30 - 7:30 (for the sports people)

Friday: 3:20 - 10:30 (or later if we are working on something)

Saturday: 10 am - 7 pm

Sunday: 1 pm - 6 pm

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Our build season schedule is 5:00-7:30 Mon, Tue, Thu, and 9am-3pm Saturday. School ends at 4:00, but so few mentors are able to get there before 5:00 that we have an hour in between. This is enough time for students to get a quick dinner (Papa John's is across the street, and several other food places are within 1/2 mile of the school.) The head coach or another teacher friendly to the team usually has a classroom for team members to get in an hour of homework. As the season progresses, some sessions will run later, often just for one project or department. Saturdays usually wind up running a good bit longer later in build season. We rarely add Tuesdays, Fridays, or Sundays, and when we do, it is for a specific purpose, not a full team build.

Edit: During the 2014 build season, we experimented with more build time availability, but with the expectation that not all students or mentors would attend essentially every session. Communications and coordination between the various build groups broke down, and in about a week, we were back on our base schedule. Maybe with slack helping keep us in touch we might try something like this again. We have a prospective member with Saturday commitments, but who can work Sundays, and several of our mentors may be willing to do Sunday. We only have two regular mentors and three students who were around in 2014, and I am the only one who was a veteran that year, so we may give it a shot.

Edit2:
We have the same base schedule between build and competition, but we're less likely to extend it and more likely to cancel for holidays and such than before bagging. A lot more of this is drive practice (the past three years we built two robots; in 2014 Woody was a wooden prototype for Buzz, and in 2015 and 2016 Peabody and R00 were essentially twins of Atlas and T1GGR).

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Shop open hours during build:

3:30 to around 8 PM, possibly later, on weekdays; weekends are 10 AM to 8 PM or thereabouts. During the last few weeks of build, the end time stretches.

Now, that being said, we do shut down completely for a week due to finals, and we do take a dinner break around 5 PM (and a lunch break around noon on weekends). Not all students need to be there the entire time, either.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

2502:
Monday-Friday: 3-9
Saturday: 9-9
Sunday 12-9

We had two students with over 300 hours, and four with over 250 during the 2015 build season. We didn't meet on Sundays during the competition season but the rest of the hours are the same

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

This is what we did last year:
Monday-Friday: 3-5:30
Saturday : 9-4:30
No practice on Sundays.

Monday through Friday: 4:00pm-9:30pm
Saturdays and holidays: 10:00am-4:00pm

I don't think this schedule is great because it caused a lot of students to get burned out. In addition to the hours listed here, our school takes a two week break every six weeks for electives, and we had a robotics work time for half of our school day in addition to after school workshops.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Monday/Wednesday: 5:30-9:00 (parents provide dinner at 5:30)
Tuesday/Thursday: 6:00-9:00
Saturday: 10:00-5:00

Hours and Sundays get added as needed toward the end of build.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

7 days a week but not mandatory for all students or mentors. Minimum 4 days a week expected .. most put in 5.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

We're 4:00-7:00 every weekday (in theory). In practice, during the last couple build season weeks, we start to push to 7:30... then 8:00... 8:45... etc.

(Note: Because of build space constraints, on any given day we can only have 10-12 students building, so we generally retain the most core members and rotate out others. Newer kids might find themselves coming in twice a week, etc).

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

6-9 M-Th then 10:00-5:30 with an hour for lunch at 1 on the weekends, depending on your position on the team you are expected to be at most of the meetings, some people got to every meeting, some people can only make the weekends due to homework and sports. You have to be at certain amount to be considered for drive or pit crew.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

We do 6pm-9pm on monday-thursday, 3pm-9pm on friday and 9am-3pm on saturday. No days are required, but we require a certain number of hours to be able to be signed out of school for competitions.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Full team meetings are from 2-8 on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (with Friday being optional) and 9-2 on Saturday. We have separate driver practice sometimes on Monday and Wednesday.

The school kicks us out at 2 on Saturday and isn't open on Sunday, which sucks because longer uninterrupted weekend meetings could be really productive.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

FRC 4607 Build Season Weekly Schedule:

Mon: 3-10PM: Department Sessions*
Tue: 3-4:30PM: Leadership Meetings; 3-10PM Department Sessions
Wed: 7AM-8AM Large Group Meeting** (LGM); 3-4PM LGM
Thu: 3-10PM Department Sessions
Fri: 3-10PM Department Sessions
Saturday: Department Sessions (9-9:15AM LGM); 8AM-11PM

*Department Sessions are meant for each department to schedule meeting times to accomplish specific goals.
**Large Group Meeting (LGM) is for all students in FRC 4607. This meeting is designed to broadcast all pertinent information across all channels. This allows all members to see what is happening in all departments of 4607. Essentially, this is our clearinghouse meeting each week.

New this year is a Hub Meeting for student leaders and mentors. The day has yet to be determined.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

The Saturday times are a hard pill to swallow. Have you checked with your Community Ed? Usually they have some say on how to schedule buildings and rooms. This is how we (4607) have established our times in the past. It is worth a look.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

2869 Schedule

Weekdays
We technically have days from 2:30 - 7:30 during the build season however very few days do we ever actually go that late as our mentors are tired and have other commitments. More realistically is 2:30 to 5 every week day.

and then we have Saturdays from about 11am - 3pm.

This year I am going to try to see if we can push Saturdays a little later so better mesh with my work schedule and give all the members some much needed sleep.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

2386's schedule,

Week 1
Mon, Wed, Fri 2:30 - 5/6ish
Tues, Thurs 2:30-8/9ish
Sat 8am-3pm

Weeks 2-5
Tues, Thurs 2:30-9
Sat 8am-3:30pm

Week 6
All hands on deck, red alert, whenever students can come in during the week plus regular/extended hours.
Tues, Thurs 2:30-10+
Sat 8am-4pm+

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Our build season schedule last year was:

M-F: 5:30-8
Saturday: 9am-5pm
Sunday: 12-5

From what I've been told, it seems like we are definitely not doing a 7 day schedule this year. We'll probably do a 4 day a week schedule. I think that's a good thing. It should help increase grades and will definitely keep us fresh for each day we come in. From what I've been told, this shouldn't effect productivity. We won't be as tired and we should stay on task more.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

s,m,t,w,t: 16:30-17:00 until 22:30 at least
f:12-13 until 16:30
s:10:00-20:00
usually the day before stop-build we work all night

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

We usually meet 3 to 4 nights a week and Saturdays. We had some families that wanted to keep Sunday obligations.

It's easy to get so caught up in the intensity of build that we forget we need some down time to recharge and get a fresh head. Taking a day off will only happen if you make it a priority as important as any other team meeting.

Long hours do not equate to productive hours. Individually, a lot of team members spend a lot of time thinking and brainstorming in between meeting so they come in with a plan of action ready to get to work.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

We have most recently been meeting:

Tues.
Wed. > 6p - 9p
Thur.

Sat. > 9a - 4p

But we're considering adding a day during the week.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

I haven't looked into this myself, but I know that Caleb has the same opinion I do, so I expect the team leadership has explored some options.

I don't know if they've looked into this though. Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Here is our schedule http://team1389.com/parents/calendar/

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

On weekdays except Monday, the hours are 5:45 pm to 9:30 pm. Saturdays are 9 am to 9 pm, Sundays are 12 pm to 6 pm. Once we're nearing the end of build season we open it up more though.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Our build schedule is:
M-F 6:30pm-9pm
Sat 8am-4pm
Sun (extra credit) 9am-5pm

Attendence during midterms is optional. Our schedule favors nights and weekends due to all of our mentors being working parents.

We may need to look at using our time more efficiently. Right now, it's drop in. I worry about mentors and students who feel the need to not miss a minute. That's a recipe for burn out. If we used these times to schedule subteam meetings for their respective projects, thus making it clear which people need to be in at which time, we'd probably get more done without overworking certain members.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

What about competition season schedule's? I'm really curious how many teams meet after stop build.

2502:
Monday-Friday: 3-9
Saturday: 12-9

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

2451:
Monday OFF
Tu-Fri 6:00pm-9:00pm
Saturday 9am-9pm
Sunday 9am-9pm (First two weeks and when needed)
The 9pm usually turns into midnight when needed.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Depends. Generally the day or two right after stop build are pretty sparse if we bother to open up the shop. After that, we'll generally maintain the same schedule with earlier closings, but during a pre-regional week we're staying later to make sure stuff gets done that needs to get done.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Thanks for all the responses guys! Really appreciate it.
Working my way through them, so I have some data to bring to my team/school admin on how we can work this out.

Once again thanks for the info!

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

My team's build schedule is:

Tuesday: 4:30PM-8:30PM
Thursday: 4:30PM-8:30PM
Saturday: 9:00AM-3:00PM

My team comes from two schools, so the students at the home base school do homework, etc. whilst students from the other school come over

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Last year we met 5 days a week starting out. The weekday schedule was 4 to 8 usually, but many of us would stay until later, sometimes almost midnight (mainly Friday nights that late.) As the season went on, we started meeting Saturdays, 10 to 2 I believe, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. The last week of build season, we were there most nights until nearly midnight, weekends upwards of 8 hours a day. Our policy is to attend every practice (maybe not when we switched to 7 days), and to be there for most of the time. Last year we had a more lenient schedule but since then we have harden it.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Wow. That is significantly a lot smaller (less time) build schedule than most teams.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

M-Th 6:30-9pm
Sat 8-6ish

Sunday when schedules are not met.
Typically if you are holding up the team, you may work more.
CAD crunch, Fab Crunch, Build Crunch, Electrical Crunch, Programming never rests...

:)

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

I figured as much. This still seems like a pretty big time commitment. I don't know the exact reason why our schedule is like this, although I think it may have to do with student engagement and mentor availability.

Interestingly, powerhouse and Hall of Fame team 67 has a very similar schedule to us, according to their website:

Tuesdays and Thursdays: 4:00PM-7:00PM
Saturday: 8:00AM-4:00PM

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Weekdays, we meet 5:00 to 7:30. Our school is out at 4:30 and students have to travel to our off-site lab. 7:30 is about as far as we can get before we have burnout and significant slacking off.

Weeks 4 - 6 we may push it up to 9 if we need. The goal is to not need it this (and every) season.

We typically meet Saturdays from around 11 - 4. Sundays if needed to meet a deadline.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Build Season for Fusion is :

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 3:30 PM to 9 PM (some stay late), 3:30 to 4:30 is mandatory study hall (students tutor each other and go to specific teachers when needed), supper (parent supplied) from 6 PM to 6:30 PM.

Saturday from 12 PM to 6 PM, parent provided snack time.

Holiday's follow the Saturday schedule.

Team members in my Engineering Course are allowed to work on FRC during class.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

My alma mater met Monday-Friday 5-9 and Saturday 11-6. We continued this schedule after Stop Build Day.

Many times we would stay much later than the scheduled times as well.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Our schedule is Mon -Tues 4:00-9:00
Wed. 4:00-5:30
Thur - Fri. 4:00-9:00
Saturday. 9:00-3:00
Mentors can participate every day but students
are limited to Saturday and one day during the week.
This policy keeps up the grades which keeps admin happy and
Allows more students access to design, build and drive.
We have over 60 members on the team and this policy is why. Many students
will quit when upperclassmen hog all the robot time.

Roger

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Build Season for 3216 is:
M,W,F 4-6
Sat 9-3
Around the last 2 weeks the meetings are typically much longer and often.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Build Season for 4571 is:
Mon-Fri: 3pm-8pm
Sat: 9am-6pm
Sun: Rest Day


I think this schedule is great since it gives everyone a day to rest and relax (or study in my case)

Students are required to at least come 3 times a week. We have about 30 on the team and 6 that make up the dedicated core (Never miss a meeting and always helpful)

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

TnT 280's schedule is:

M - F
3pm until 9pm (later on Fridays based on availabilty)
3-4 is homework hour
6-6:30 we break for dinner (Provided by parents for all)

Saturday
9am - 2pm

Sunday is the same time frame but only if needed

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

We have an off school build site. One of our team parents shuttles members over after school. So M thru Friday we meet from 4 to 7. Saturday 10 to 3 or so. We try to avoid having to provide two meals on Saturday. Last year we only got together twice after bag and tag, but of course we did not have a practice machine to work with.

Regards a "core group" I would offer my observation. Take whatever number of students show initial interest in being on the team. 50% will actually sign up. Take your team roster. 50% will do almost all the work. That of course does not discount the important "niche" contributions of part timers. Often the kids who can't make every practice are very capable but are busy with jobs and other activities. As our team has gotten a little bigger we can afford the luxury of having this sort of student participate. TW

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

This year, our build season schedule is as follows:

M-F 6:30pm-9:00pm
Sat 9:00am-5:00pm
Sun No Meeting

Our weekday meetings start so late because most of our mentors are professionals who don't work locally. This gives them time to get home and eat a quick dinner before our meeting.
Saturday meetings have a lunch break in the middle from 12pm-1pm.
The past 5 years, we also had Sunday meetings from 1pm-5pm, but we're trying to have a day off -- we'll see how that goes.

There are often people who stay later than the scheduled times, but we do limit school nights to 10pm (except bag day: we "party" until midnight, and since we're on EST, it's still midnight for us).

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

We meet as an entire team
M-Th 6 - 9pm
F 6-11pm
Sat 9am - 10pm lunch and dinner provided by parents
sunday is a rest day.

After stop build day, we will drop a day during the week and also saturdays will only be till 4pm

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Monday through Friday: 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM (can go over)
Saturday (and Sunday if needed): 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

We seem to build for quite a while during those six weeks.

Monday-Friday: 3PM-8PM
Saturday: 9AM-5PM
Off Sundays and Holidays

That's also assuming we have no snow days, which we get every now and then here, sometimes for a stretch of several days at a time. If we get a snow day, it sometimes causes us to work even later on those days.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Someone with a lot of time on their hands should graph all of this data! It would be cool to see a graph of total hours per week, as well as possibly other graphs of like time for each day of the week etc.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

I don't know why I am doing this - i feel like i should be doing other stuff... but... ROBOTICS!

Anyways, I am attempting to get this all into a "analysable format", and a spreadsheet would work nicely.

So... if you would be so kind, could you submit your teams information on http://bit.ly/submitmeetingdata

You can view this data at: http://bit.ly/viewmeetingdata


I am going to attempt to put the data that is already in this forum in.

If you would, please use the form to get it in a nice format!!

THANKS!
::safety:: :D

EDIT: I got thru logank013's post on page two. I'm tired xD

I used http://www.easysurf.cc/tspan.htm to calculate the hours and then put them in the form.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Heat map of teams' hours per day: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Better than I could have done xD

Thanks!

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

6065 goes everyday during the week 3-6pm, and Saturdays 10-4

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

As of the previous post, some compiled stats from the heat map:

Average Build Season weekly hours - 26.3
Most likely times to find an FRC team in thier shop: Saturday 10am-3pm
followed by Thursday 6-8pm, then Tuesday 6-8pm.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

I'm kind of glad someone said something about this sort of issue, because our team has a similar struggle. We represent a Catholic School and Parish, and we meet in the Parish Center, so we're basically allowed to stay there until the building closes, and that's about it. Because of this, our typical meeting schedule during build season looks a little something like this:

Mondays-Wednesdays: 5:30-7:30pm (We have to wait for our mentors to get off work and then, again, we stay until the building closes)
Thursdays (for Programmers only, Knights of Columbus also meets that night, so we have to keep the noise down): 5:30-7:30pm
Saturdays: 10am-2pm (Sometimes later if we decide to move the whole shop to our lead mentor's garage and work :) )

I'm not sure how helpful this is, but I'm sure if your school is super strict on when they want you in the building, then there may be other teams in the area that are willing to let you use their space (or even a practice field if they have one!). There were a few teams that did this for us last season (Thanks 2137, 3539, 2612, 3098, and Bob Nichols of Kettering University!) and it really made a huge difference in how much we were able to get done (and how successful we were in competition).

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

I've always liked skipping Mondays and Fridays (unless Monday is a holiday) and doing the rest. Seems to help with burnout as the breaks are evenly space time wise.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Glad to hear most teams take Sunday's off for rest. the only sunday we did last year was on Kickoff weekend and it was only in afternoon for a few hours.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

I grabbed just the first two columns of "Raw Data" and did a histogram. MrCool/MechEng83, can you add my second worksheet into your google doc?

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Last year Texas adopted FIRST Robotics as an official UIL (which lays out some of the rules for high school competition in Texas) activity. The rules say a club or team cannot "require" more than 8 hours from Monday morning to Friday close of school. So we plan to cut hours to Monday 6-8, Tuesday 6-9, Thursday 6-9, Friday 6-10 and two shifts Saturday 10-4 and 4-10. UIL discourages activities on Sundays. Hopefully this does not impact our work flow too much! We are trying to be more strategic and scripted to be more productive during our limited (compared to previous seasons) meeting schedule. Crossing our fingers ...

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Out of curiosity, how tightly related are the two changes of FIRST being an official UIL activity and the impending startup of Texas Districts (scheduled for 2017, but pushed off to 2018)?

Added:
Clint, I believe that many of the teams, particularly those with 30+ hours per week, are reporting "shop open" times, not mandatory times. Just looking at the first page of this thread, you can see this in posts 10, 11, and 15. I expect many of these teams have more than one coach/mentor with keys to the shop.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

I see that some teams are putting in over 40 hours a week during build season, in addition to school and work. I have to ask, are you actually being productive during that time?

It seems to me that at that level of FRC; burn out and drop out rates would increase significantly.

Remember to plan your work and then work your plan.

Thomas Edison:
"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."

Remember that a failure to plan is a plan for failure.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

My team, the Metal Mustangs, officially meets 6-8pm on Monday-Thursday and 9-4ish on Saturdays. In addition, any snow days or holidays are basically the same time frame as Saturdays. We tend to run later than the official times if things need to get done though, and some students often get there earlier on weekdays to get stuff done if necessary.

We really haven't had too many problems with burnout in my time on the team. We emphasize that schoolwork is still a priority and are pretty flexible if students have conflicts which helps if people need a little break. In addition , Fridays and Sundays are reserved for rest.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

As some anecdotal reassurance, a few years ago 1257 cut back from 5-6 days a week with 4 + hour meetings to 3 days a week with meetings that defaulted to 3 hours (but could be extended if needed). We got a lot more done in that time, because there was less burnout and more motivation to get work done.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Build season: we take over the tech ed wing of the HS. Classroom , computer lab, wood shop, metal shop and auto shop.
M-Fri 3:30 - 10:30 (most students leave at 5:30 on the late bus because they do not have their own transportation)
Saturday 10-6
This is for both of our teams.
We have one coach there all the time, 2 are there most of the time and 2 sometimes.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Done!

Sorry for the delay, was out of town for Thanksgiving.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

No correlation as far as I know.

Re: Build Season Schedule Questions?
 

Thanks, to both of you!