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Paul,
I see what you mean about burnout, but it has not hit me yet. I see many people go through this. From my experience as an adult mentor, I think that FIRST is more manageable to do if you are "settled down". In my case, my life was pretty chaotic until I got married and started having kids. This marriage forced me to give up the things that made my life chaotic (playing football, being in a band, golfing, travelling around the midwest every weekend to see friends). While FIRST is a difficult job to do, it is very predictable. I can tell my wife and my boss that I will be elbow deep in a robot in February and I will have some weekends away in March and April. They both know that this is coming and they support me in this effort. If I were single and did FIRST, I would probably not have the wisdom to give up the other things that would make my life more chaotic. I really respect all of the college students who are FIRST mentors, for I probably would not have the discipline to stick with it if I were in their shoes. Just my opinion... Andy B. |
After two years, I"m not burned out, but that"s due to a mix of A)Not having time for emotions like motivation and B) A resposibility to the others on my team. After one year on a rookie team, I started another rookie team and me teamates and I put out quite a bit of effort to make something that would move (it actually only moved about 30feet in the entire regional, but it launched crates in practice). We had one student with a year experience, one engineer who used to program graphics cards, a devoted frosh and soph, and about 10 other people who showed up once a week. After about a week, the core group learned tat school is secondary, but this took a bit of a toll on our grades. The others knew to stop when one of their grades dropped a letter grade (10 %age points) but I couldn"t because other people needed me, so each of my classes dropped at least this much.
Do I have the initiative to go play with the EduRobotics kit up in my rom? Not in the least. If a future-frosh called and wanted to play with it? I would drive it over to their house and teach them everything I knew so they"d be more prepared for next year(note:To put this in perspective, I"m too young to legally drive). So the fire in me may have been blown out, but the fuel in there is still ready, waiting for the fire of another robot nerd. |
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I've felt burnout. I've been there and I never want to go back.
Andy's very correct - get the rest of your life in order, and FIRST will follow suit. I'm taking a year off from being completely dedicated to a team to do just that- but we all know that my heart belongs to team 1020, and I'm sure I'll be saying all this 'taking a year off' stuff, and then get sucked right back into it for next year. |
Well, this is something that I never thought I'd see myself saying, but I really do feel burned out by FIRST. Not so much the program, and the robot building, but the organizational and team aspects. I love building robots, and I'd keep doing it forever if I could, but the experience I had with my team this year really put a damper on my enthusiasm. After all the drama of organizational meetings and power struggles with a few underclassmen, I feel totally drained. One of my best friends found herself fighting half the team all season, and it just really drains the fun out of things. I hope to be able to return amicably some day, but for now, I'm just too tired of it all to keep going.
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The burn-out thing hit me hard two years ago. I tried to take a season off. I couldn't do it!
I learned how to say no sometimes or delegate the work to someone else. I also learned that it is very important to have non-FIRST friends who understand what you put into it and that FIRST is good. When my wife said "I know this is what you do, you make a difference" I was hooked and some of the family pressure was off so I could help the team. I'll be tired of this for a few weeks, then August will come around 30 kids will want to know when the 1st FIRST meeting is, the next thing I'll know it will be May again. Steve Yasick Team 85 |
Thanks for sharing everybody. (Group hug!):p
I guess "burn out" is a little more common than I first thought. So many people put in so much time and emotion into this. It is not hard to cross the line and over do it. It is taking a long time to recover this year. I'm sure I'll be back next year. After all, we have all these cool ideas buried somewhere in our heads, and when the time is right they just come exploding out without abandon. I don't know how you married folks do this program, unless your whole family participates. FIRST is such a time vortex in Jan/Feb. You all must have some wonderful spouses who recognize what you are doing, and know this is a great thing for soo many people. Being single for me, makes this easier to handle. I don't have to worry about parental responsibility or that I'm not spending enough time with the wife. I have always been a busy person and Racecars have occupied most of my adult life.(Prior to actually having a Racecar, I spent mostt of my time as a kid building model cars and googleing over the pages of Hot Rod Magizine) I love Drag Racing, and Hot Rods to my very core. I actually got involved in FIRST because in many ways it is similar to having a Race team. During the off season from FIRST, I spend many moons working on my Camaro and Tow rig setup. The biggest conflict I have, is FIRST happens when I need to get the race stuff done so I can be ready to race come Appril 1. Unfortunately, most of the fabwork on a car takes longer than building a robot. Oh, the choices we have to make. I am enjoyiong the break away from the whole FIRST thing. I do miss getting together with the team, but we were spending too much "quality time" together. Pretty bad when you know other peoples wardrobes as well as your own!:p Anyway, I am a FIRST'er and a Draq Racer. These 2 things are difficult to juggle if you want to do both successfully. But who ever said anything in life worth doing, is easy? Enjoy our break this summer, whupp it up. Let your hair run free. Let those ideas ferment somewhere back in a dark cave in your head, and when Mid Fall approches, just relent, because you know you can't stop...Those ideas will just take over yuor life...This is just too good an experience to let it slip by..:cool: |
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This past season was our 8th year with the team. What seems to work against burnout is setting limits on yourself. i.e. "I will only do electrical this year" or "I will go home by ten, tonight". It's hard to do, but every little bit helps. I also do Lego League in the fall, so I really don't have the up and down. I just stay on an even pace throughout the year. My hobby is ham radio, and I build a lot of kits for that. It is something you can do or drop and pickup in a few months without a problem. Getting on the air is sometimes a problem, but if you can fit in 15 minutes here and there you are still doing OK. There is nothing like talking to a marine down in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or a retired TV tech in British Columbia and teach them about FIRST in the process. |
Our team is dealing with teacher burn out this year. The man who has been the head teacher for the past five years just can't do it anymore. Without him, the future of our team is a little up in the air, because we will never get another teacher to commit to as much time and work as he has done. However, I would rather see him go and possibly lose the team than have him continue as he is because he is becoming more and more negative towards the team and that isn't good for him or for the students. I've actually been friends with this teacher for close to 9 years now and I remember when he first got into the team. His enthusiasm was amazing. It was still pretty darn high three years ago when he got my other involved (I have to admit, due to the teacher understating how much time it would take up, I was not happy, and he, the teacher, knew this and wisely avoided me for a bit). Two years ago, I joined and I've seen the decline of his enthusiasm... but me joining and that decline have nothing in common, I swear! There are a lot of reasons he burned out, conflicts with his personal life, conflicts with work, and with what he really wanted to do. There are aspects of the team he would have loved to been more involved in, but he always got pulled away for admin. stuff. And he is "the teacher". The engineers and mentors can become friends with the students and while a teacher can too, there is always that line between student and teacher that cannot be crossed (for example, the students cannot openly talk to him about the senior prank they pulled like they can with the engineers).
Can burn out be avoided? I don't know. I would think everyone would feel a little burnt at some point. I think there are some things that can be done to prevent becoming totally burned out. Don't take on too much. It's so much better to do a good job at one or two things than it is to do a mediocre job on lots of tasks. And if you need a night off, take the night off! Get involved with what interests you, try to avoid taking on tasks just because you're afraid no one else will do it. One of the roles on our team is working on the financial aspects. We need someone to do this, it's very important. I will not volunteer for it because I find number crunching completely boring and I haven't even balanced my own check book in two years so why would I volunteer to for something in that area? I know the quickest way for me to burn out is to be bored. MissInformation <=============> One day I'm going to have a cat named Everything so I can honestly say I know Everything. |
I've been in FIRST for only 1 year, and usually I get burned out of stuff w/in a month if I do it constantly (like in FIRST), but get burned out of robotics.....NEVER! I really enjoy what FIRST offers, shows us, and teaches us.
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I saw that quote spotlighted, and I have to WHOLEHEARTEDLY disagree. You WILL learn a lot from FIRST, and you'll take a lot away from it, but the things you learn in school are infinitely important to your future. When you apply to college you can only stretch the "I build robots for fun!" story so far. I once thought as you did, but believe me, looking back: I wish I had spent a little bit less time sketching designs, and a little bit more time paying attention in differential equations. When it comes down to it, School will define your life, robotics is just a bonus. Some people make a life out of FIRST, but not many... To start thinking, even for an instant that robotics is more important than school, is terrible. It will likely come back to bite you. It almost goes against the mission of FIRST. John (I said something similar when I was in HS, and only now do I realize how wrong I was!) |
Physical Burn Out
I think everyone who puts those countless hours into the build period has at least on frustrating burn out moment when the code won't work, the arm swings the wrong way, or the drive train just never works and you have to step away for a little while.
The worst burn out I've had happened this year. I say it's a physical burn out because I was sleeping only when necessary (4 to 6 hours a day), doing homework, building the robot, managing everything else as usual, while running around like crazy trying to make it to meetings with teachers, administrators, etc. Unfortunately my school (a boarding school, which means we're in a dorm) got hit with a really bad strain of the flu and we basically didn't have much of a meeting for a few nights in a row because only a few stayed in good health. I was one of the lucky many who got it really bad. Those evenings that I crawled from my bed, down to the lounge to work on the robot weren't necessarily horrible. I look back and laugh at them. But at the time, all I could think was to get away from the whole thing. Maybe the lesson I should learn and pass on to others is: take FIRST seriously, but don't let your health get involved! Another burn out moment from this year comes to mind as well. In St. Louis I went on stage as the mentor. I think I've mentioned once before - I had a cold and a fever during the competition (those lights get hot when you have a fever!). I managed to stay alive, energetic, and happy those three days. But when I got home, it was spring break and I slept almost all day Sunday through Wednesday. Even after all of this, I don't think I'll ever be truly burnt out. I still look at other teams' robots in quiet awe. If you're getting too burnt out, I suggest taking a look at what's causing it. Maybe you're too involved (it is actually possible) or maybe you have other things in life to deal with (FIRST is here to stay, so don't regret missing other important things!). Whatever it is, I would suggest working on it rather than getting to the point where you look back on your year(s) in FIRST with total disgust. |
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Pit Falls...
FIRST has probably been the most influential program of my life. I have gained so much from doing it, and I have learned so much about engineering, people, and most of all...myself. As I head into my 10th year of FIRST, I really do realize how much of a double edged sword it can be. For the competitive types like myself, you can get consumed in it very easy. When trying to juggle FIRST, work, and school at the same time, you can get burnt out very easy. This burnout has actually caused quite a pitfall in my life. Due to FIRST and the burnout it caused, I was set back in college. I wasn't making the effort that was necessary to gain your degree in time. I would find myself during build season, excelling in classes that I was taking at the time, therefore I thought everything would be good. But by the time competition was over, I was so beat up physically and emotionally, that I just couldn't find that energy or desire to do my work. It wasn't until I nearly failed out of school which I smartened up and decided to take a step back from FIRST. Of course, though I tried to quit, I just couldn't do it. I was fortunate though to have befrended such a wonderful team as CHAOS 131 in my previous years. I joined the team in 2002 on a very limited "consultant type" basis and they took me in as one of their own. As a result of being able to work with this awsome team, and having plenty of time to do work (because they were an hour away from me, it made it easy), I was able to bring my grades up to honorable level and graduate. My one bit of advice to every student in FIRST is this...FIRST is a great experience, there is nothing out there like it. It is awsome to see so many "FIRST-a-holics" out there who live, breathe, eat, and sleep FIRST. I just ask every student out there to be careful. Make sure as you go into college, that you do not fall into a trap and take in more than you can handle. Being a mentor on a college team is alot of very hard work, and when you are trying to pull out an engineering degree, it can hurt your grades if you are not careful. I suggest exactly what I did to others. When you are feeling burnt out, or when you need to focus on life more, but you don't want to get out of FIRST, find a team that you have to travel a little bit of a distance to be with. If they are cool and they take you in like CHAOS did for me, it'll help you not only quench your thirst for robotic combat, but it will allow you to focus on the things that are truely important in your life. Also, don't forget to take some time for yourself to do things you have always enjoyed doing. Come summertime I am not all gung-ho about FIRST, so I use the summer to separate myself from it (barring the occasional Delphi post and offseason competition announcing job). I have found that this not only helps me enjoy life more, but it also makes me look forward to FIRST more towards build time than normal.
Cya at Battlecry! Andy Grady p.s. Hey BAKER! Dude you were in a band?!?!?! Oh man, I can see it now, Andy all decked out in long hair, tatoo's all over his arms, playing the bass for some punk rock band playing the local clubs! Man, did you marry one of your groupies? How much for the demo cd??? :D |
Burnout is anual ritual
Burnout is an annual thing for me. Every year at some point, I always swear to myself that I'm never going to do this again. However, every year I come back. This year was especially difficult for me. Even so, I'm pretty sure I will be back. We'll see how I feel in the fall.
-Chris |
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