[Chris Hibner]

Since my previous question didn't generate much traffic (yet), here are some of my thoughts behind asking it:

- Many people on this thread argue that extending the build season will create more stress on the mentors. Then finding a way to pull the season back to 4 weeks might be better for everyone. If 8 weeks is worse than 6, then 6 must be worse than 4 (or not?).

- Shortening the build season forces more design tradeoffs - "do everything" robots will become exceedingly difficult to pull off. Maybe forcing some more design tradeoff through time limits is not a bad thing.

- It might force FIRST to simplify some of the design challenges so teams can build competitive robots in 4 weeks. The game could still be exciting, so maybe that's not such a bad thing.

- We've discussed lengthing the season, but haven't at all talked about shortening it. Why not?

- If you feel that 4 or 5 is simply not enough time, then why exactly is it not enough?

During kickoff, Woody always makes a speech along the lines of, "we give you a hard challenge, and not enough time to do it." What is enough time? What is definitely too little? Does your answer depend on if you feel that scaling back your design ambitions is a good or bad thing?

(I know some of this is in the "Is 6 weeks a perfect number" thread, but: a) I hate multiple threads discussing the same topic, and b) I'm looking for answers along the lines of how it pertains to mentor burnout. At this point, I'm up for hearing anything. A lot of people on this thread have stated, "if FIRST does XXX, then I'm going to think about limiting my involvement." Let me say that if FIRST doesn't do something, I'm thinking of limiting my involvement. Then again, I've been saying that every year for the last 12 years.