[rick.oliver]

I have read every post in this thread and have already posted. Nothing I have read compels me to change my perspective. My first preference is to eliminate the bag and tag requirement; provide teams with a voucher which they may choose to use to ship their robot to and from the championship on a date of their choosing.

To the question of what would 4028 do differently under the circumstance I described? As I am the lead mentor, not the dictator, I will share what I would strongly advise our team to do. Our work schedule would not change in the first 6.5 weeks – we have not proven we can get it completely done in 6.5 weeks, so until we demonstrate we are more efficient, no schedule change. We would continue to select two events from the same Regional events which are relatively close and we would work around any major school events. We would avoid back-to-back events and likely target weeks two through six; ideally three and five. We would continue to build prototype subsystems and more effectively assemble them to ensure that they work together as designed. We would complete our design, fully test, debug and practice. If I can find the resource close, I would pursue the idea of getting pre-inspected.

Net, we would come to our first event complete, practiced and ready to inspect. I know from experience that when a team can do that, the competition is better and everybody has a much better time.

To the comments concerning the value of the 6.5 week deadline and its representation of real world requirements. I have been an engineer in the chemical process industry for 35 years. I understand that deadlines and commitments are real and students need to learn how to meet them. I also know that some deadlines are hard and fast while others are soft and may be renegotiated at times. For the past 23 years I have worked for a consumer product company. I have designed manufacturing processes for new-to-the-world products; redesigned manufacturing processes for major reformulations of products; modified existing process subsystems to work more effectively and remove “issues”. Here is one thing I know for sure – we can never stop innovating or we will be buried by the competition. Sure, we push hard and keep schedules to get the product out as fast as possible. Then we continually improve the product and the manufacturing process to provide new and better benefits and lower costs. This is my reality and this is what I want to help our students experience. We will do it under the current rules; we could do it more cost effectively without the bag requirement.

Concerning the relative competitiveness. I want no parts of constraining anybody from executing an excellent design to near perfection. I want to see highly effective machines fully playing the game compete on Einstein every year. If we could be one of them, great … I am not going to kill myself trying or lose any sleep when we don’t make it. I will celebrate the success of those who win and learn from them.

Concerning burnout. I get exhausted by the end of build (is that burned out, perhaps). But I recover quickly. Without the bag requirement, I know that the stress and frustration of not being complete would be at best eliminated and at worst postponed. Certainly no worse. The stress at competition would depend upon performance and reliability. I believe we would be more reliable and perform better. We would meet more during the build season as needed, but I believe under less stress and more effectively with access to the competition robot.

Finally, to those who express the concern about burnout, I will offer the following wisdom which has been shared with me over the years. The first is live your life based on priorities, balance is a trap and invites you to always compromise. It makes you feel like you are cheating one of your priorities. Another is to ensure that you manage your time such that you have margin (time which is unscheduled so that you may respond to the emergencies and opportunities in life). The last one I learned recently, limit yourself to five roles. These are my five roles in priority order:
1. Disciple of Jesus Christ
2. Husband
3. Father/Grandfather
4. Engineer at Procter & Gamble
5. Lead Mentor of FIRST FRC Team 4028