Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

This topic has been a discussion inside our team for a while since we have had students and mentors put 400+ hours in from 1 Jan through our final regional. (I'm one of them). We've talked about putting hour limits down but presently our view is:

1) School comes first. We follow up on all of the kids with their teachers at school to make sure they are keeping up with their class work. We also follow up on behavior issues and if the school suspends a roboteer for bad behavior we also follow their lead.

2) Family wishes come next. If a parent says "little Foster can only work 4 hours a week" then it's 4 hours. We work with the parents to understand what we are doing and what their requirements are. Siri is putting the final touches on a guide that spells out what the work schedule looks like. In most cases we are comfortable with about a 20 hour per week commitment.

We do have late build sessions at the end of the build cycle and sometimes parents are not happy about coming out late to get roboteers. We will organize transportation for them with the parents permission.

3) Health. If a roboteer is sick or exhausted we will send them home. We are very aware that some are burning the candle at both ends. To the best of our ability we monitor food and beverage intake to make sure that people are eating and drinking.

4) Other activities. At one level it's not my problem. I'm not going to go to another activity mentor (like band) and go "Hey I have an issue with the time that you require". And when those mentors come to me to complain I'm going to tell them that they need to work it out with the student. At another level I am going to check in with the student and make sure they are doing the things that are important to them and that we are not pressuring them to work for us.

There will be ranges in how many hours get put in and where. Two years ago one of the roboteers was interested in electrical and only electrical. He came in for 2 design / planning sessions and during the three build nights for electrical and did nothing but that. He was happy, we were happy and so everyone was happy with the experience. Total time was about 30 hours.

And then there is Siri and she did work crazy hours her junior and senior years along with her freshman year at school. (At some level I'd like to be 1/2 as energetic and organized as she is.) Other students that have gone away to school (or going away) have said that they want to be mentors and we gently push them to go to college and focus on that. We gently pushed on Siri but as you can tell from her note we had limited success.

So in summary "It is what it is" - roboteers and mentors will try to work the hours they want. As long as they are keeping the other balls in the air (School, family, health) then I'm good with their hours. You only get out of life what you put into it. When there is a problem we will step in and try to get things back on track.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

Warning: This is more about alumni mentor hours than HS students'.

I appreciate the push, though. In fact, I also gently push our graduates towards college and tell them to get settled before even considering robotics. (Which I did indeed do, not participating basically at all fall semester. And now I'm about to break 1000 hours since kickoff. Anyway...) I talk to them about their grades and commitments too. Most think it's a little weird, but it works. If they're going to come back, I'd rather it be in spite of me rather than because my example. It shows they really want to be here (also, that we're patently insane), and they're doing it entirely of their own volition. The way I see it, everything from there on is their problem, though I'll of course try to help if they ask. This is my basic philosophy with the HS kids too (though with less "grow up" than I offer the alumni), along with the overruling points Foster explained.

Personally, I'm just a ridiculously stubborn person to get rid of. Foster should really know this by now. :P

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

I feel that although the 200 hours rule may seem like not enough , when you do the math, it really isn't that bad...

If you say you're pulling in 400 hours in the robotics lab (meaning, not counting work at home). Even if you work all seven days of the week, you're still pulling in 9.5 hours PER DAY!!!! 9.5 hours of robotics everyday, plus 7 hours of school, and there's only 7.5 hours left in the day....Not to be rude or anything, but thats a little much.....

As captain I put in more time than any other students on my team. I can say that I usually put in about 4 hours of solid work at home per week, plus the 4 hours Mon-Thurs, 6ish hours Friday, and 7 Saturday. Not counting at home work time, thats only 174 hours, and even that is a LOT of hours. A Typical 9-5 work day would clock in at 240 hours in the six weeks

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

Oh Andrew, I was waiting for your reply. :)

Actually Andrew, homework was mentioned in the initial post. But we'll get back to this later.

As to the "straw man" argument, let's examine what you said.

User rtfgnow said:
To which you responded with:
I'm assuming that the problem you're talking about here, "" is about students not getting enough sleep or their performance dropping. My "Johnnie example" describes an edge case or scenario where a student who works hard for their grades by studying and on homework (I'm one of those BTW) would be hurt by this new rule. In summary you cried, "but they don't know their limits" and I responded with "so what?". That brings me to my next point.

Limits. We all have them. Right now on my team many of our members participate on crew which gets pretty intense during the second half of the season. Since we were a rookie team last year many of the students didn't realize the commitment level they would need to give for robotics. However, our team coaches (and one parent very involved with the school's crew team) made sure to communicate any scheduling conflicts and help team members make the right choices as to what to do when there was no way of avoiding a conflict.

For some members they had to choose one or the other (our team is actually pretty intense - we're not the type where you can show up one day a week and call yourself a member), but that was a really great experience for them. They learned what their limits were.

Now I thought it was interesting to see a parent's perspective on the forum:

Yeah, that's an issue. Assuming that you're not like many parents - easily worried ;) - then you should talk to the student/mentor.

Fantastic! I'd also bet they have three to five times as much fun at a competition.

I'm honestly offended by that statement. To many kids, including myself, robotics is the greatest thing that ever happened to them during high school, so spending hours working on a problem isn't crazy at all. Also, the kids spending the "crazy amount of time" working on the robot are making a choice to do so. So either they enjoy torturing themselves, or they are actually engaged and thinking about something important and interesting.

It really seems to me that our culture is on this crusade against greatness and exceptionalism. You either have to be a singer or football player to be great. You can't have a desire to build things, invent, create, or make more money than you ever dreamed of without getting attacked by someone who thinks you need balance in your life or to "tone it down". Why is it that we all have to be mediocre so we don't offend anyone?

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

As the team facing these restrictions, one of the other things we'll be doing this season is moving from a paper log, where everyone self-records their time, to a biometric timeclock like these.

Having solid data about how much people are really in the lab has become more important than it used to be. As people have mentioned, 200 true hours in the lab over a six week build season is really quite a lot.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

From the Original Post:
Something that is not often considered by students is the idea of legal supervision. It seems that the "lab" in question must be owned by the school. It must therefore be supervised by someone who can be legally responsible for students - usually a teacher. Some schools require that an administrator and/or custodial staff must be present on a campus if students are present. Even if students are ready, willing and able to spend late hours in the lab, that doesn't mean that the schools faculty, administration and/or support staff are. There may be other reasons that such limits are in place beyond student grades.

If your school allows students to be in a classroom without supervision, they must have very, very good lawyers, because they are risking a lawsuit. Add a "shop" or "lab" into the mix and it only gets worse. All it takes is a slip and a grieving parent to end a program. This gets more likely the later the hours are and the more tired/overworked everyone is.

Work within the limits and see what you can accomplish. Work with your school administration and share your concerns, but first be sure to look at the situation from their point of view.

Perhaps this is what the 2011 season is about for your team. As has been observed time and time again - if you think this about robots - you're missing the point.

-Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

It is, or is it? and that is what this discussion is about. (and you forgot those 18 hour weekends) In a four month period can you do 400 hours? I'll speak to my case of working, being a VEX mentor and being an FRC mentor. The time commitment is huge. I spend a good 1/4 of my time in emails, ordering parts and doing updates to the web site to keep people informed. And in some ways it matches what happens on a big project launch. So I spend 'spare time' doing robot team stuff.

It's never been about the robots. But the robots make an interesting misdirection that we all use. So its ALL about the robots. :rolleyes:

Over 30% of my time is ordering parts, driving for parts, updating websites, dealing with emails and putting together required paperwork. Next time your robot club meets, stand up and go "Hey who is the NEMO (Non Engineering Mentor) and what do you do?" And when they go through the 100's of tasks that happen behind the scenes try not to be surprised that the engineering part of a FIRST robot is less than 1/2 of the things that go on.

Oh yea I forgot, reading and posting on CD, thats a good 10 hours a week, but thats another thread.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

I couldnt tell you how many hours me or my teammates put into the robots, however I think our team has a wonderful system of dealing with grades, which I think the hour limit may have been put for fear of Homework neglect

Grades: You MUST have a C+ [about 79%] or better to participate, and either a high B- or better [84+%] to go on trips depending on how far and how long we are leaving for. If you drop below the participation grade you must go to study hall and get your grade up to come back, or we assume you think Robotics is not worth the efforts to be in. [If you dont come to study hall when your grade drops and/or dont get your grades up in a time period to be decided by the coach you get kicked]

It works really well... After starting this, our avg team GPA came up almost .5! Its a huge difference than before when during build season when all our grades got ignored and dropped far below what collages would look for.

Yes, robotics is a good thing, a good way to learn, and a good thing on applacations for Collage and work, but grades are far more important than saying "I was in robotics and neglected my grades..." on collage Apps.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

While this thread has meandered through many good topics throughout its 80 posts, it's important to remember the original context. From the very first post:

Putting in 400 hours of work over 6 weeks is 2.5x more time per week then 400 hours over 4 months. It was also specified as being in lab time, so you can presume that there was more time spent out of lab. Lastly, it was specified as student(s). Presumably, less people need to worry about your workload then a student.

Given the constraints of the original poster, I find those hours to be excessive, like the person you quoted. Changing the constraints to the way you stated them is much more reasonable, but isn't what we were asked to consider.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

My team is literally student led in every way we have 1 mentor who helps with the mechanics, a team member who graduated but helps with programming, a teacher advisor who only attends tournaments, and a few other mentors who show up on weekends sometimes.

The reason for our lack of mentors is that, after a management change at the company my dad (our coach and primary mentor) works for he has been unable to commit to anywhere near as much time as before. to compound this problem, we already had our long time mentor from JPL go to work for a different company and has been only able to attend practices on the weekends.

If my school(s) put limits on the time I could put in during the season I really think that it would not do me (~4.5 GPA) or the team any good. My brother and I put in countless hours during the season. On our team the more experience team members (like myself and other group leaders) end up assuming a mentor-like role at practices. As a result our experienced members will end up putting in 3-4 hr. a night during the school week at build sessions and additional 8-10 hr. a day on weekends. I also have to handle all of the CAD for my team and end up putting in anywhere from 40-100 hrs. in on my own time to CAD up the robot. My brother the team president has to plan out the meetings and any other team event on top of handling sponsors and the registration stuff. In the last week those student leaders will end up putting in about 150 hrs. as we finalize the robot.

If a time limit were imposed on my team it would likely decapitate the leadership and would either cause the team to collapse (which we are already in danger of) or we would have to just ignore the restriction (which wouldn't be that hard for us considering I live at our build site, my house). I don't know how many other teams have a situation similar to ours but if it were to happen to my team the likely result would be no team.

my estimates for the hours put in on our team are:
Me ---- 500+ hr. (I only have school 3 hours a day for most of the season.)
my brother, and VP ---- 400 hr. each
Other team leaders (8 members) ---- 250+ hr.
Regular team members (10 members) ---- 100+ hr.
Club members (15 members) ---- 40 hr.
A large number of the hours for our team members come in the last 4-5 days of the build when we usually have a 4 day weekend and meetings run 15-20 hr. a day for some members.

I think a wiser and more effective solution would be to maintain a minimum GPA like you would on a sports team. That way the team leaders, who I can say that on my team all have high grades, can still lead the team.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

Maybe the school would be willing to work on a system like this:
A average: 500 hours / 6 weeks
B average: 400 hours / 6 weeks
C average: 200 hours / 6 weeks
D average: 100 hours / 6 weeks

Though, it's important to note that FIRST is the kind of program that brings relevance back to school for the talented kids who've just given up.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

While requiring a certain GPA in order to qualify for the team would be fine at most schools (we don't have letter grades as such) with only a six week build season a student can destroy their standing in a class before that reality is apparent to the team, parents or the administration. By the time the grades come out at the end of the semester it's too late to do anything about it.

In the past I've told teachers and parents to keep me in the loop if they notice a student is having problems. That works only sporadically, though.

The course workload at our school got so intense a few years ago that the administration instituted a school-wide effort to restrict the amount of homework a particular class can require per week, the amount of practice time a sports coach can require, etc. Until this coming year robotics has not been subject to these limits because the time you put in is voluntary once you exceed our 50hr per build season requirement. This new 200 hrs-in-the-lab circuit breaker is consistent with this idea of not letting one class or activity completely block out everything else in a student's life. Note this limit doesn't include time at home working on robotics, competitions, outreach events, etc.

I'm keeping an open mind about it.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

On RUSH we had grade reports we had to have our teachers sign every week. I know you don't have grades in the traditional sense but would having teachers sign off that a student is performing adequately in their class be an acceptable method for determining if they are keeping up?

Also, while I disagree with the principle of telling students that they cannot spend more time doing X than a certain amount I have to say I like the concept of this policy. Perhaps the 200 hr hard cap could be relaxed a little but overall it doesn't seem like the sort of knee jerk reaction some school policies feel like. Additionally, it sounds like the school administration is really in touch with the needs of their students and would be willing to work with you should this policy be shown to have a negative affect on the program.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

On team 418 we also are a student run and built team and we set two limits. 1st is that our students are passing all their subjects. This should be met during both build season and when we travel to competitions and is non-negotiable. 2nd is a minimum number of hours to be eligable to travel with the team. This is a minimum of 90 hours and is broken down into two catagories (a) service to the team & (b) fundraising. The service to the team is a minimum of 60 hours and can be credited as build, design, website, technical writing or any other service to the team. The fundraising is hours spent directly working on fundraising. Socliciting sponsors, stadium cleanups, car bashes, you name it.

We have many team members that exceed the minimum, some that just barely make it and some that we miss at competition. But as long as they keep their priorities straight and manage their time well we have never, nor has the school ever imposed a maximum number of hours a student could work. Parents always have that option. For the record, we typically work 3:30 - 6:00 Monday - Thursday and Saturday morning. We do not meet on Fridays or Sundays.

Re: Limits on Team Hours
 

The weekly sign off idea might be a good one if the 200hr cap doesn't work for us this season. It's a lot of paperwork but would be a good alternative.

I do like one aspect about the cap being known upfront... that student leaders need to learn delegation skills and make sure other members in their departments are fully trained so they can take over more of the load.

Our team has a very full fall schedule building multiple robots for a pre-season game, the BunnyBot Competition. We use this as a training time for new members or those switching departments. It takes on new importance with the new time caps as it's our best opportunity to make sure everyone can contribute fully during the build season.