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Unread 05-05-2013, 19:00
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Siri Siri is offline
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AKA: 1640 coach 2010-2014
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Re: The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

I'm not convinced one way or another on this question, particularly with regards to relative competitiveness. (I think lessening burnout would require a culture change in addition to a timebox change.) I do have one (new?) positive for the full-season build, though:

I remember when 1640 was a single-event team. We'd spend 6 weeks building a not particularly impressive robot, go to a single regional, get completely creamed, and then go home. We were terrible, we couldn't figure out how to get ahead, and we really didn't see a point in trying longer given the results. Even when we did two events, consistently running over ourselves (literally) did not provide much time for me to step back and feel myself grow.

Running the full season in those days, until mid- or end of March, would have made it more like a sport. I think it would have had a better impact on me. Of course, we weren't racing for the top at that point. (Our first two event season, I remember going 2-9 at Pittsburgh and then 5-6 at Philly.) But I think we would have enjoyed having a sports "season" in which to experience FIRST rather than 6 weeks and a couple tail-kickings. Off-seasons in MAR were a reasonable analog of this for me then, though more would have been better and I know may places do not benefit from as many off-seasons. (I think we did 5 last year.)


For my own team now, I think I'd prefer no bag & tag. Build season runs at least to April at this point--we had something like 14 nights off between Kickoff and Worlds. It would really just save us having to build a practice bot, which is painfully expensive, and keep us from working through practice matches. I'd be amenable to like 12 or so hours "out of the bag" per week instead, though. I do see the fear of copycats, though. This would be tough.
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