how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We will be having a rookie informational meeting in a couple of days and I was just wondering how often your team meets during build season?

I was thinking maybe have meetings monday through saturday. Saturdays are mandatory and you could chose three out of five for the rest of the meetings. Should we make all of the meetings mandatory (if they have something they can talk to mentors/leadership but mostly come)? or less meetings?

thanks, vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

we have build meetings every day after school till 8:00 or later and sometimes we have builds on saturdays. But we do have builds every single weekday until the build season is over. the only thing is we don't require people to come they just come if they can or wan't to.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

1983's meeting schedule is monday to thursday, from after school (3:30) till we are done. Which on good days is 8:00, but we have gone till 2:30 in the morning. Now we tried this last ear, and as the build season progressed, it shifted from 4 days to monday-saturday till we where done. All days where mandatory.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

364's Schedule:
Monday 3:30 to 8:00PM
Tuesday 3:30 to 8:00PM
Thursday 3:30 to 8:00PM
Saturday 1:00 PM to ~6:00PM (If we need to get things done, we'll stay later)

Nearing the end of build season we will sometimes work on Wednesdays and we also stay very late on Saturdays (I've been working on the robot until midnight before)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We meet every weekday 3-9ish (gets later towards the end) and then saturday from 9-? (usually quite late), and sundays 10-? so every single day of the week basically

i also have put in 55 hour weeks towards the last 3 weeks usually, i pride myself on never missing a meeting and being the first one there and the last to leave.:rolleyes:

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

1065 used to meet Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 4-8 pm.

I'm not sure how 2023 works just yet.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

FRC 418 typically meets:
Monday - Thursday, 3:40 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Saturday, 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

There is usually one teacher workday and we meet a good part of that day, time arranged depending on our teacher's schedule.

We have met on Fridays and have worked late into the night but only when deemed absolutely necessary. Instead, we try very hard to set realistic goals for each sub-team per week and stick to them.

This year, we are talking about forming a tutoring/study group within the team. If anyone has suggestions on how to do that, please send me a PM. It would be very helpful and appreciated.

Regarding mandatory meetings: we require service hours. Because the team has grown so much this year, we will be changing the amount of hours required in order to qualify for travel. During build, the lead teacher will call a 'few' mandatory meetings of the team leaders, sub-team leaders, and mentors. He will call one or two team meetings and he will call one parent travel meeting toward the end of build. If a student steps forward to assume a lead position on the team, it is the expectation that he/she will be there consistently. If they can not be there, they are to notify the lead teacher and/or the mentor they are working with. If a sub-team leader can not be there, it is their responsibility to tell their team leader and/or project manager. The project manager, who is often the team leader, will have weekly meetings with the sub-team leaders. Students who work on the different aspects of the build, including the Chairman's Award and the Woodie Flowers submission, are expected to attend as much as they can but not to the detriment of their classes/grades. School comes first on our team. It is very sad to work hard on the build and then have a failing 6 weeks - unable to travel. Time management is a big plus in having a successful build and competition season.

Edit: during design phase, the design teams meet on their own and during that week, the whole team meets from after school into the evening hours for 2 nights.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

In past years, our team has gone Monday - Friday after school until as late as 10:30pm (however, the leave time varies and usually reaches this extreme closer to ship-date). Usually, by then, the number of kids has whittled down to those who are busy working on something and have lost track of the time. And on Saturdays from 9am - 4pm (give or take a few hours).

I don't know how any other teams handle their late nights, but our parents support us by scheduling a different parent to bring meals. Each weeknight, a different parent comes with salad, pasta, pizza, chicken, and more, for the team to eat.

On Saturdays, we have a parent bring bagels or once, pancakes, for breakfast and another to bring some sort of mass sandwich or otherwise for lunch.

This year, we are considering establishing a weekday which we take off to catch up on homework and sleep, inspired by one of our teammates.

Hope this different team perspective helps! :D

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Usually everyday from 3:00pm to at least 7/7:30 pm and towards the end we will stay as late as 10:30/11:00pm. We usually meet on Saturdays and Sunday's in the afternoon for 5-8 hours, increasing to 10+ in the end.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I asked this same question a little while ago in thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=59083

I found it very helpful to compare the results of the poll the the teams performance data on http://thebluealliance.net/

What i found interesting is that for the most part, time spent correlated with performance: the more time a team spent, the more likely the team was to have performed well. However, there were some notable exceptions on both ends of the spectrum.

Of course, the poll is unscientific and the data isn't necessarily accurate, but still interesting.

~Phil

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Keep in mind that Judaism requires that its adherents rest on Saturday. Although, similar to Sunday in Christianity, it might only matter to orthodox Jews. Not being Jewish, I don't really know how strictly the Sabbath is observed. Similarly, Friday is not a good choice for a mandatory meetings since it is a special day for Muslims. Although, a meeting on Friday is not as big a problem for Muslims as one on Sunday for Christians or Saturday for Jews since that day is different from the other days by a change in the noontime salah. Thus, it probably would only impact meetings if school gets out not long after noon.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

There are members up at school working everyday of the week. We meet at 7:00 at night during the weekdays, to allow for our mentors to get home from work and to allow for our students to get their homework done. Most nights we work until 10:30. On Saturday we work from noon until about 11 or 12, and then on Sundays we are there from two until about 9-10. Students are required to make it twice a week and Tuesday is mandatory for all students/mentors, we have full team meetings where each sub-team reports on their progress and any info for the whole team is dispensed.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

From the Roman Catholic point of view, Sundays are not a day of rest like Saturday for Judaism (actually Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) - we just need about an hour to attend church (some Christian masses are longer) and we're good to go.

It should go without saying: If Robots interferes with any aspect of your life (Schoolwork, Religion, Schoolwork, Family, Schoolwork, Work, Rest, Sleep, etc...), Robots is the one you should let slide. A robot build season is 6 weeks; your life is lifetime thing.

That being said: Spiffzizzle's post notwithstanding, a 32 hour build week is not unusual, and late in the game it goes even longer.

Don

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Compared to the rest of these replies, not that often. We meet Wednesdays from 5:00pm-9:00pm, Fridays from 5:00pm-9:00pm and Saturdays from 9:00am-5:00pm. Luckily, the ship date has always been right after a four-day weekend, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday it's 9:00am-5:00pm. On that last Monday, it's been 9:00am-11:00pm and later. None of the meetings are mandatory, but the main people on the team usually try to make it to all of the meetings.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Also, instead of team update meetings, I send out an email with notes after each build session detailing what we did, what we need to get done next session, and any other information regarding the robot, like parts ordered, etc. The entire team meets only when there is something important that we all need to discuss. That way, we keep non-productivity to a minimum.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

This year for 1618:

Monday/Tuesday/Thursday 3:15-5:00
Saturday 9:00-1:00 (or later, if we need to).

Last year, it was just Monday/Thursday/Saturday until the traditional Week 5-or-6 six-day-a-week crunch. I hope the extra weekday will take some of the load off, particularly in the early design phases.

Of those meetings, the kids have to make X percentage of weekday meetings and Y percentage of Saturday meetings in order to qualify for travel.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I had no idea that people had build sessions so long. I am going to be leadership this year and I was just wondering if there should be someone there all the time?

Wow, I am stunned at how much people meet. I think we might stick with until about 6 each day after school(our school starts at 7:30 and gets out at 2:30) so we will have a good 3 hours of build time everyday. We probably will have saturdays mandatory unless religion requires otherwise.

That is just what my opinion right now. I am taking out the time requirement part of the rookie presentation and it will require some serious discussion on the veteran members' behalf. Thank you guys and please keep the opinions coming.

thanks, vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Saturdays 9-5; after 5, break for church (one of the services starts at 6:00, but there is a meal at 5 and we build pretty close by). Required to show up for a little while.
Sunday afternoon: typically around 1 or 2-whenever. I often left at 6:30 for Scouts. Not required.
Monday -Thursday: After 7 or so to around 9. Wednesdays were pretty sparse due to other commitments from a large portion of the team. Not required; pretty much just subteams.
Friday: 7-whenever (remembering the marathon the next day). Mandatory; usually a status update and future planning happened either here or Saturday morning. Also travel and other "miscellaneous" meetings at this time.

Translation: Someone will be in the shop almost every night and at least half the day on weekends. Exceptions: Super Bowl Sunday (nobody shows up) and Valentine's Day (no married mentors allowed in the shop, unless they have made other arrangements for another time, though we've eased a little on this).

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Team 716 has a schedule that changes week by week. We start with the sunday after kick off from 12 to 5. that is the only time we meet on a sunday unless the robot was totally massacered from winter warzone scrimmage. then we meet monday thursday saturday, then after 2 to three weeks monday thru saturday. during the weekdays we meet 5 to 9, and saturday 9 to 5. the day before we ship on that monday we start at 9 till the robot is ready. in the past they have had to work till midnight, luckly we ship our robot from a factory that runs 24/7.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We meet Wednesday's 5-8
Saturdays from 9-5
Plus extra hours are required.
Face it. If you're just working build season on your scheduled hours then you're just doing it part time.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Our mechanics sub-group meets almost every day during the build season. During the workweek we only meet for three or so hours to discuss strategy and design, and to order parts. We almost never build anything during these days. This allows the students to focus on homework and school.

Friday and Saturday are the days when we actually build things. We work until the parts are finished. If they're done at 7:00 that’s a good thing :] If they're done at 1:00... that just sucks. We figure that no one is actually going to be doing homework on these days anyways, so robotics won't interfere with school.

We also work on Sunday, but only until 4:00 so people can finish their homework.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Monday - Thursday 6:00PM - 9:00PM
Friday - 3:00PM - 9:00PM
Saturdays 9:00AM - 6:00PM
Sunday 12:00PM - 6:00PM

Inevitably, those hours are extended later in the build season, but that's how things are for the first few weeks.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We're revamping our schedule this year, but last season was:

Tuesdays & Thursdays ~ 2:30p - 6:00p
Saturdays ~ 8:00a - 4:00p

Week before regional we worked everyday from 2:30-6:00 and Sunday from 3:00p-5:00p. This year we will be making Saturdays mandatory and different subteams will meet on different days, only requiring members to come when their division meets. Of course, if you want to come every day, it won't be discouraged.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

depending on the group they decide when to meet but manufacturing meets every day of the build season and we stay till we are kicked out of the building

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

The first weeks are design and prototyping and the real building doesn't start until week three or four.

The first two or three weeks are Mon-Thurs 6:00-9:00 (but our brains are working a lot longer.) After that we will also meet on Saturdays and depending on how it's going we will throw in a Sunday or two.

We will absolutely work the last Saturday and Sunday and as long as we can on Monday before ship (hopefully just practicing.)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Build, we meet every weekday, 3-6PM (give or take an hour), and Saturdays 9-4 (9-9 when it gets to crunch time).

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

During the design process, we have around 3-4 meetings a week. When building starts, we basically meet everyday of the week, from 7 up to midnight (although most people leave by 10 ish). On weekdays, only about 4 people come to work a day. There have been Fridays when I worked at a machine shop from 4-11 at night (free pizza for dinner though).

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We don't really have set hours.

Mentors usually show up between noon and two on weekdays. Kids show up between two and three. We work until 7-8:00 or later pretty much every day. Fridays we stay till 9 or 10, often.

Weekends we usually get there around 10-12, and work till 8-10. Sometimes later.

When it gets down to crunch time, we're pretty much there nonstop. Last year I slept in our lab from Thursday through Tuesday.

In 2006 we tried to take Sundays off at first. It didn't really work. We got behind and started working Sundays anyways.

We didn't take any days off that I can remember... Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine's Day... all fair game (unfortunately)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

As Mika said, we mostly just meet Wednesday and Friday evenings and then all day Saturday, with the occasional Sunday thrown in if necessary. But the last weekend (from Thursday night to Monday night) most of the core members spend all their waking hours in the shop. We've yet to sleep there overnight, but there's been talk of resorting to that for the coming build season (efficiency?). Although it might be useful to have more meetings, many of our members have homework or other extracurricular conflicts, and also it's hard enough already to find parent volunteers for all the supervision and food slots.

How do you guys get homework done? I mean, I'm all for sacrificing schoolwork in favor of robotics, but still, it seems like meeting every day after school until late in the evening would be a recipe for either zero homework done or zero sleep.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Weekdays 4:00 to 8:00 PM. Last two weekends if necessary.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I am wondering the same thing octothorpe is. How much sleep do you guys get? For me, if i dont get atleast seven hours of sleep i start to go a little crazy. if we got out at 8:00 then I would have until 11 to finish my homework. not counting dinner.

thanks,vivek

p.s. are caffine pills allowed in FIRST?:ahh:

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Not much. :p

Seriously, as the robot ship date nears, the more dedicated (or fanatical) students spend more time at the shop than they do at home. That includes sleep and meals. But we encourage people to do their homework at the shop, where they incidentally have the benefit of others who can help them if they have trouble.
Mountain Dew certainly is. :)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

HA! 7 hours is way more than enough.

As John said, Team 237 meets from 4-8 every week night of build (Mon-Friday) with a dinner stop from 6-6:30ish or less depending on how busy we are.

To build on that, students are not required to attend any meeting by any means, but if you promise to do something for the team you are expected to be there to finish that promise. (ie: Mechanical team member making a part, electrical team member getting supplies, etc.. etc...)

School comes first with all students. Grades are more important than meetings or the team itself, so if they need extra time to study the day before a big test (even if it's the dreded week 6) the student is expected to make arrangements for that.

During the last 2-3 weekends of build, some get together if extra time is needed.

Also, as far as dinner goes, student's are not expected (I don't think) to supply at least one meal for the team, but it goes towards your participation credit when you do.

ie: A student cooks for the team for 5 nights out of the 6 weeks will get more participation credit in that aspect than one who only cooked 1 night, but the dinners are all still appreciated. The line of this agreement is fuzzy, but we plan this in December, or @ kickoff if we are running late. We have at least 6 weeks worh of time to fill on that food calendar, so a donated dinner is better than a dinner the team would have to purchase out of pocket, or a night gone by without food.

In the 7 years I have been on my team, we have not missed a night of food if we knew about the meeting in advance. In the case we plan a surprise meeting, it's usually handled (fairly) smoothly by all who attend how to eat that day. lol

And btw, caffeine pills are not encouraged. They provide a false sense of awareness (especially when driving - we won't go much farther into that story right now. :rolleyes: lol)
Liquid versions of caffeine are greatly consumed tho by every FIRST team. (Mountain Dew, Monster, or Bawls are the preferred forms on 237 from what I have seen.) :D

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Most likely our team will meet every weeknight from about 5:00-9:00. That gives the mentors time at their real job, and the students a couple of hours after school for homework.

Saturdays will be all day, about 9:00 or 10:00 to 5:00. Longer if we're behind.

Some Sundays, if the site is open. We also give up holidays like MLK day to work.

As ship date approaches, time may be extended later into the evenings.

Students are expected to be there as often as possible, given their other commitments. Missing a Sunday because of church is expected; missing because you just didn't feel like getting up isn't a good excuse.

If you cut out non-essentials, such as video games, tv and texting, you can concentrate on both build, homework, and your other activities. CD is the only website you need for 6 weeks. :)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Team 457 build season meetings are:

Monday 3:30-8:00pm
Wensdays 3:30-8:00pm
Thursdays 3:30-8:00pm
Saturndays 9am-5pm (we stay if we need longer if we need to finish things)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Team 188 meets Monday - Friday from the end of classes till about 10. As with other teams that tends to go till 11 if needed. In the last hours the janitors will allow us to stay later with conditions. We also meet Saturday 9 - 7 and Sunday 1- 10. Everyone on the team is expected to bring at least one meal for the team. Some of us that are there every night bring 2. The team also meet at lunch were eating, homework and robot build take place.

Members are encouraged to keep grades up. Help can be found in the room with students and teachers. We do not expect everyone to be there every night but attendance is looked at for going to regionals. The students sign in and out for safety and an hours spent log. If there are tie breakers for going to a regional then we look at the hours spent.

Mentors attend 98% of the time with some mentors going to special meetings (hockey) but all are back by supper. Supper is held Sunday - Friday at 6 and lunch on Saturday is at 1. I will warn that burnout will happen without constant awareness.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Let's see....115 meets every day of the week. Monday through Friday is from 3:00 to 6:00. Saturday and Sunday are about 1:00 to either 5:00 or 6:00...and of course like most other teams, we begin to stay a longer towards the end of build. Since our team is fairly big compared to other teams, attendance is not mandatory as in everyday but more of like what you can handle given your workload, so basically it ends up being 3-4 days/week. :)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Are there mentors there all of the time? is somebody that comes all of the time?

We work at the warehouse of a company. they have maybe 15 employees so unless we find more mentors and establish some form of agreement with them i do not think we will be working past 5/6 on weekdays. We need to talk this out with them and all of the old team members (although i wish there were more of them, we only have maybe 4 dedicated members that experienced last years build season.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Yes, you need responsible adults there at all times.

One thing to consider when assigning sub-team responsibilities is the availability of the students. It doesn't do your team much good if the lead arm technical person is only available 6 hours a week - no matter how good he or she is at building an arm.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Little to no sleep is inevitable. Although we're working from the school and the janitors would like to get home sometime, so we can't stay really late or sleep there. I heard that the last teacher had keys to the school, which helped a lot. Is it easier for those teams who work out of a seperate workshop/machineshop?

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

sorry, let me rephrase that previous question: is there one or a group of mentors that is/are at every meeting to make sure that things run smoothly?

How do the parents of freshmen/rookie members usually react to the time requirements during build season?

thanks, vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Yes, definitely. At least a coach or mentor is there whenever any student is there.

The requirements for the team are spelled out very clearly in the mandatory parents meeting (we held it last week). We do emphasize what I posted earlier though: If your teachers say you're slipping, "then out you do go". Like Alan Anderson (and others) stated, there's lots of help for homework from students, teachers and mentors.

Don

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

To state it bluntly, we meet

Every.
Single.
Day.

Woohoo! Is it January yet? :D

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

To truly say that we've maximized our time well and put out our best effort, our plan has always been.............EVERY DAY!
On superbowl sunday, its our shortest day since we leave to watch the game at 1:00pm Hawaii time.:D
During build season, check out our website as we update our progress daily. As of right now, we are meeting daily afterschool for several hours, except on weekends to work on prototyping, documentation, off-season event planning and the build season preparation.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

arg, i am not getting this right. I mean: is there a single mentor that shows up to every single one of the meetings? the same mentor.

I im inferring that there is usually not and that we need more than just 3.5 mentors

thanks, vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

With our four-day schedule, we tend to get a fair degree of mentor continuity. Our teacher attends virtually every single meeting, as do I. Many of our other teachers and mentors attend regularly as well. However, a handoff system wouldn't be too terrible (person A comes Monday and Tuesday, person B comes Tuesday and Wednesday, person C comes Wednesday and Thursday...), at least in my mind.

To answer your earlier question about reaction from rookies, the answer is that it depends. In 2007, we went from once every other week to three days a week, and a lot of students and/or parents balked; we brought seven kids to Palmetto. This season, we've made no bones about the requirements from day one; I think we'll have some natural attrition, but nothing on the scale of last year.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Not here...though I think the primary exception is Kickoff and the immediate meeting for the closest mentor I can think of. 99% per mentor typically ain't bad. And some mentors DO have a life outside of FIRST...

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

gasp?...

I think we need a lot more mentors as of now. where do you get most of your mentors? school, parents, companies?

thanks, vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Parents, mostly. Or past/future parents of students on the team. My dad started when I was about 8. I was about 14 when I joined the team...

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

sometimes till first period, if its a good day....

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

umm. On a side note, how long can a human being survive/remain sane without sleep? :]

-vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

sane? about 5 weeks.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Well, it is really hard to die from lack of sleep; the world record is around two weeks for normal people with a full recovery. For longest period awake, I believe the record is several months, but very long periods of sleeplessness like that are caused by medical disorders that result in death. (There was a rather interesting 60 Minutes story on a family in, IIRC, Italy that had one of these sleep disorders running through their ancestry. Basically, one day in their thirties or forties, without warning, some members of the family would be unable to fall asleep and later die after months of sleep deprivation) You do start to hallucinate after a couple of days without sleep though, which may be a problem operating power tools...

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

so if I get decent sleep first week of build I won't need any for the rest of it. Awesome.;)

-vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Often, the consistency of the team is based on the consistency of the mentors that commit their time and effort to the team. Teams find ways to work with the schedule. Communication is key in running a FIRST team. The mentors that you have should discuss what they can commit to and what areas they will work in with the team. From there, you can figure out if you need more mentors. It is always good to have mentor support and parent support. Time constraints are a big part of build. Learning to work within those time constraints is real world.

Your team has to figure out what you can and can not do this year and learn from this experience. Build on it. All of this advice is nice but it can also be overwhelming. Go through the thread and write down suggestions that have been helpful and something you feel your team can do.

There are teams who build out of a living room and a garage and they are successful. There are teams that build out of warehouses like you are talking about. There are teams that build out of shops at schools. There are teams that build out of shops provided for them by their sponsors. Every team has to figure out how to make the best use of their time and their workspace. There is no cookie cutter method to build.

If little red flags raise regarding lack of sleep, using energy drinks to keep yourself going, letting studies slide - pay attention to those little red flags and discuss them with your team. Your rookie year is the only rookie year you guys will ever have. It will be stressful and the learning curve will be enormous but approach it with as much common sense as you can and have fun learning what a FIRST team is all about and capable of.
Take the time to read the information that has been released for the 2008 manual.
Take the time to look at the resources provided for you in the FIRST website.
Take the time to look at the rookie resources provided for you by teams and referred to here in CD.

This thread is a thread of advice, humor, and suggestions, but the actual programs that have been developed to help rookies through their first build and competition(s) are where you'll get the most bang for your buck.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Wow, lots of replies within a few hours. Uhm, anyway, we have the main teacher and an engineer mentor from a company called Fluke (I still don't know who they are) and I think that's part of our problem with limited hours. That and the somewhat restricted school administration, but that's another story. I really wish we had more mentors, since none of the parents help out at all, although we don't have a big team, so right now we're good.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Since you have a mentor from Fluke, and your post implies that this engineer might be your only technical mentor, it would be a good idea for your team to learn a little about that company. Sponsors, judges, politicians, school administrators, and other interested people just love it when students learn a few things about the folks who volunteer their time to help. :)

Fluke is a highly respected instrumentation company. They are part of a larger corporation called Danaher. A division called Fluke Biomedical has one of its head offices in Cleveland, so that may be where your team's mentor works. Fluke Biomedical's website can be found here.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Oh, you'd be surprised . . .

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Yes, thank you Richard! 2007 was my rookie year, so I was just trying to get a hang of the program. But it's good to know a little bit about the company now. And we do appreciate him greatly.

Sleep. I'm still trying to calculate how much of this strange ritual I perform during "that time of the year".

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

For survival, it's really difficult not to fall asleep at some point in time. Actually, I read someplace that missing a couple of hours of sleep is approximately equivalent to drinking two or three beers. And it's possible to medically overdose on caffeine. Caffeine is a drug and can poison your system to the point of your heart stopping, so DO. NOT. OVER. USE!

For sanity, definitely depends on each person. Some people are capable of pulling all nighters two days in a row (!), some need ten hours a night to function. I know people on both ends and everywhere in between. Personally, I can work on 6 hours a night, maybe 5 if I'm really pushing it. Most people are somewhere in between, and I don't really recommend testing your limit. But if you must, make sure you can crash for at least ten hours or so. Once I worked all night on a school project and nearly fell asleep on my bike on the way to school. :ahh: In front of a big intersection. :D

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

But I'm sure that people have died long before this from lack of sleep. I seem to remember somebody dying after 10 days (can't find any sources right now to confirm that though.)

My record is slightly over 5 days, btw :D

Jacob

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I used to think that sleep was just wasted time, and I'd stay up as late as possible as frequently as possible. Eventually I realized that sleep does have some positive benefits after all (at least for me) and tried to get more of it. Of course, there are still occasional exceptions to this approach *cough*3:15amPST*cough*.

Relative to robotics, as much as I generally enjoy the build season, I find the meetings, especially the longer ones, pretty tiring both mentally and physically (being on your feet for 12 hours is surprisingly fatiguing). The trick in my experience is to get enough sleep to keep from falling over (or getting flattened by cross-traffic), but at the same time to be sleep-deprived enough so that everything gets that extra ounce of humor injected into it, thereby maintaining optimal operating status for robotics.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We're in our robotics room a long time during building season.
Monday-Friday : 3PM to 11:30PM
Saturday : 10AM to like 11:30PM also
Sunday, I can't remember, I think the same as Saturday also.

We practically live in the school during that time.
How we manage that and our schoolwork?
We still don't know.
:confused:

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Just thought I'd point out that this schedule equals 8.5 h * 5 plus 13.5 h * 2 = 42.5 + 27 = 69.5 hours, or about a 70-hour workweek. Compare this to data from the NSF which reports the average workweek for engineers as 48.64 hours. In general, this thread reminds me of a quote from one of our team members, who said about robotics: "Hobby? Try life!"

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

About a dozen years ago when I first met Dean Kamen (which was about one day before I got involved with FIRST) he said this in response to a question about his all-denim wardrobe: "These are work clothes. If I'm awake, I'm working."

We can't all be Dean. But with the right attitude and preparation, we can make careers out of our passions.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Team 66 you haft to be at 3 of 5 of the meeting days.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

This year 294 met every day during the build season. Weekdays 5-9 and Weekends 9-9.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

do you think that people could do an after school activity and still do FIRST? One of our core group of four from last year does nordic skiing and would not be able to make it to meetings until five.

thanks, vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

The TechnoKats arranged multiple meeting times on certain days last year, with one "shift" running from immediately after school until 6pm, and another from 6-9. This was mostly to accommodate engineering mentors with a day job, but it also made it possible for students participate in other afternoon events without missing too many build sessions.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Hmm, I never thought of doing it that way. We had a member in band who was constantly missing meetings. I might bring that up with our team, about starting later in the day.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

488 is in a unique situation and so we run things a bit differently than most teams out there. We transport ~90% of our team members to and from meetings since, in some cases, it's a 30 mile trip and we live in an urban area and most of the students don't have cars.

Student meetings are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; from 6:00 pm until 10:00 pm during the week and from 9:00 am until about 5:00 pm on weekends. Mentors usually meet on the remaining days -- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday -- to organize and prepare for the following day's meeting. Because our enrollment is large -- anywhere between 40 and 60 students in a given year -- and because we're providing transportation to most of them, we "invite" students to meetings based on need, though everyone may attend on Saturdays. That means that some students might be meeting three or more times a week, while others come only on Saturday.

For teams that meet at a school, this sort of system probably isn't necessary, but because we have students coming to us from all over the city and because we're meeting at our sponsor out in the 'burbs, we have to run things a little bit differently than your average team.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

OH this is classic for Aces... mon-thur 6-9ish. Sat an sun 10-5/6. an if needed the over nighter before our scrimmage. :D its fun stuff!!

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

It was made officially official today. To qualify for travel:

-70% of three-afternoons-a-week meetings (that's 14/20)
-60ish% of Saturday meetings (4/7)
-$100 (less, we hope, but that's the working number)

There are some alternatives in the works for those who just plain can't do one or the other, but by and large these are the rules.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Hmmm, club fees. That's an untraditional way of collecting money for a FIRST team, as far as I know. How's that working out for you all?

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

club fees are implemented on team 2264 this year as well. They are more to retain members than to fundraise. there might be more people staying for something they paid for than not.

-vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Never really thought about it that way. I know if I paid $50 for something I sure as heck would want to be a part of it.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

1525 is kinda crazy-ish

Mon-Thru = 6:00 PM- 9:00 PM
Friday = 6:00 PM- 11:00 PM (early season)
Saturday = 9:00 AM- 10:00 PM (early season)
Sundays = 9:00 AM- 1:00 PM (depending on fi there's a football game)

Friday = 6:00 PM- 2:00 AM (end of season)
Saturday = 9:00 AM- 3: AM (end of season)

Weekend of shipping = NO SLEEP AT ALL!!!!!!!:ahh:

it's great... meetings are not mandatory, just strongly encouraged because we have a relatively small team.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I have a question for teams, specifically ones who meet in schools, who can meet late or stay all night. How did you persuade the administration/janitors to let you stay?

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Our school is open all night (sorta) and so the school knows that we plan on staying late. We also do not work in our school. We use to computer labs from the start of the season and doing CADD/ INVENTOR while our team mentor has a workshop of his own that he lets us use. We have started feeling bad for him and his family because he never has time with his family during the season and his wife has to navigate around about 7 cars in his driveway if she ever wants to leave. It's kinda impossible which makes the season even more fun. Especially when it snows and someone gets stuck! :)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We just stay. The janitors don't really come by to kick us out or anything, and the administration is relatively understanding. We have a set of keys to the workshop so we just lock up whenever we leave. Normally our slots are scheduled only as late as 9pm, but if we run a few hours over, nobody's there to notice or care.

Except, actually, the local police force, which has dropped in on a couple late-night work sessions. We assume they just stop by to see why the lights are still on, and to make sure everything's all right. In the past they've usually been perplexed by the robot-building but have apparently decided that we're harmless.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Since when have a few thousands dollars for students with a mind for learning ever been deemed "harmless?" :D

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Well, none of us have been arrested yet, so...:D

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We work hard to keep up appearances. :cool:


I'm sure that day will come. The garden will run out of bricks eventually.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I really hope the garden of bricks is a metaphor and you are not actually using bricks from said garden to prevent your arrests somehow... ( and bricks usually involve some throwing and the some falling, usually destructively...)

thanks for everything guys. keep it coming please

-vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

No no no, we're not using the bricks to clonk policemen over the head or anything! :eek: Sorry, it was a bit of a 766-in-joke. The garden club needed bricks for an herb garden they were making, and there's a construction site at our school right now that had involved tearing up part of a brick patio. I hopped the fence to "repurpose" some of the extra bricks they had lying around, that's all.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

around six pm to around 10 at night
some time till 2
or 3
or when every we fall asleep
...
that the good part at working at someones house

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Team 4 is probably going to meet Monday - Friday from after school until 9PM and you're supposed to come at least 3 days a week. We have new coaches this year, and weather or not we meet on weekends and exactly how late we stay depends on how much they're willing to do. Our coach up until two years ago had us meeting every day, usually until 1 or 2 AM and starting at 9AM on weekends, with all-nighters on the last weekend. The hours took their toll on the students, and there was backlash from the teachers. As a result, we got a different coach and we're kicked out of the building at 11PM, lest we set off alarms.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Wow, that's awful. Some teams can get by on that schedule and still get work done. I think we can do it, but I feel that somehow our coach (a teacher) is afraid, in a sense, of the administration, and rightly so.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

yeah I think that we will have to work our way into such a schedule. once we have a good 25 veteran base we will start to work towards that. for now maybe 6 at the most usually and until 9 or later during ship weekend.

-vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I would just like to say that I am suprized at how many teams have mandatory days.

In my opinion teams should not require their members to attend as school, religion, health, and family all come before any after school activity or event.

this is one of the reasons why team 624 has in the past conformed to the system set up by the University interscholastic league (UIL), which states that a student must be passing in all classes otherwise they cannot participate until the next progress report is sent out (and if they are still failing they still must wait).

but that system has not been implemented since we have changed faculty sponsors.

but still, teams should not require members to attend as grades, family, ect. all come first.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Well, I have to disagree somewhat. We have the grade requirements (not that high) on top of the meeting requirement. Now both have been set low enough to take into account the previously mentioned issues. But, at least for our school, we would have people who join just to go to the events, and maybe show up for one or two meetings. IMHO, this should be set from team-to-team, as the case may be different depending on region, city, main religion, etc.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

In order to participate in our team, you must be passing all your classes and have a certain GPA (I think it's 2.5). We also have requirements for going to events. The administration only allows 10 students per teacher, so we're limited to 20 per event. Our student board decides who goes on the trips, and those who don't to meetings that often are unlikely to make the cut.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Doesn't FIRST come first? ;)

I suppose 766 works pretty differently from most teams. We don't pay for team travel other than mentors and advisors (all students pay their own way) and we don't have district-set limits on team field trips, so there are no restrictions on who can come to which events. Consequently, there are no requirements for attendance during the build season. If there were, we'd probably have fewer than ten people officially on the team; we need to count relatively uninvolved people to even claim a 20-person membership. The only real requirement is to have submitted the team medical form so that we know who to call if someone gets hurt.

We also don't have any grade requirements. Our team's attitude has always been that we'll take involvement at any level, high or low. If you want to devote every waking second to robotics, fail your classes, and flip burgers after you graduate, that's fine. If you want to skip every build meeting but show up to the regionals to cop free medals, that's fine. We may not recommend either approach, but we do ultimately rely upon the student to manage their own life appropriately.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Team 852 meets for building regularly Monday-Thursday 6:30-10pm, Saturday & Sunday 10am-6pm. During the last week and a half of build, we usually work 6:30-11 M-F, and 10-10 on weekends. Granted,we work on a "Show up when you want to, leave when you want to" schedule, so nobody is required to show up for any meeting, though you need to show up to at least six meetings for a reasonable amount of time to be remotely considered as a "serious" member of the team, unless there's a valid reason why you couldn't make it.

We also don't have any hard-and-fast rules about grades, but the general consensus is that your classes come first, and at Athenian, if you're not doing well, our advisor will hear about it, and you won't be able to build until you get your act together.

We've found this works pretty well, since there's a core group that shows up fairly frequently, and then they're aided by those team members who don't show up as much.

Hope this helps!

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Heh. FIRST jokes have popped up in English class and English essays, as a close friend and team member sits close to me in English.

About the travel, our mentors do get paid travel, as do teachers, I think. The students must take care of their own. Also, our most experienced programmer is also one of the people with the least attendance. Our driver is involved almost entirely with the build season and Cal Games, as are some others. I guess that we will always have these types of people, as well as those hardcore overly dedicated types... :D We have been recruiting, but only time will tell with our new freshmen. Right now the entire tried-and-true (at least one season) "core" team consists of Juniors, not including possible freshmen.

The key resides in finding a happy balance between school and robotics. When in doubt, ask what you want to do for the rest of your life. :confused: Or try, anyway (I think I have it...)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We mostly have parents as supervisors. We also haven't had more than 20 students attend in recent memory as a small team, so I guess that helps. :rolleyes: As for student government, we have two Co-Presidents and they share duties/responsibility.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

as of know I do a lot of work for the team. I call most of the meetings and I am a sophomore. I figure I/we have another three years to set up a team organization and make sure it doesnt stop as soon as our current sophomore year graduates. We do have a promising group of rookies (I hope) of maybe ten people currently and are hoping to recruit some more.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

The happy balance between school and robotics is 0% school and 100% robotics :rolleyes: Unfortunately that particular equilibrium comes with a few downsides, namely not graduating high school. Nonetheless, I am convinced that with enough brainstorming we can surmount this difficulty. As for your second statement, how many people of high school age really do know what they want to do for the rest of their life? Not many, I'd think, and certainly not me.

Vivek, it's funny you should say this because that's pretty much the same situation our team is in, except just replace "sophomore" with "junior", "three years" with "a year and a half" and "ten people" with "five people". We're all wondering whether there will still be a Team 766 in 2009 after most of the current members have graduated.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

You know, our(my) solution(idea that might work) currently involves getting a bunch of freshmen and training them in the ways. hopefully this works....

-vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

It works. Absolutely.

I did a brief search for a wonderful comment regarding 2nd year team members becoming first year mentors. My search failed but maybe someone will find it when they read my poor reference. <apologies>

It is true. A second year team member does not have the accumulation of knowledge and hands on experience that a fourth year does - but - a second year has the beginnings. Setting up a system of training and mentoring the new team members is awesome and helps strengthen the team from the inside out. Seniors naturally worry about leaving the team and yet we find each year that because of the training and mentoring program that we continually work at, the team continues to thrive and improve as our seniors graduate and new students join the team. It's very exciting.

My suggestion is to start now. If you are small and a relatively new team, you can still start/begin. Set some short term goals and long term goals and begin to work towards them. And when frustration sets in or disappointment - take a deep breath and keep going. The work and effort you put into the team may not show immediately but it will eventually show and someday shine.