[smclean1969]

When our team made it to the Championship event in 2012, I did an informal poll of teams around our pit area and it seemed that most teams were putting in 20-24 hours per week on official practice times. Obviously some are putting in substantially more hours and others less.

For what it's worth, I've built a rough estimation approach that can typically determine a team's performance. The number of hours put into prior to and during the build season are one of the primary factors indicating how successful a team will be. There's just no way for a team to be consistently successful without working very hard.

Now, teams with increased resources and better machining shops in particular can produce prototype and competition parts much, much faster than some other teams. This may save them a tremendous amount of time but most of them simply use that time to produce a better robot instead of taking the time off.

One thing I'd caution folks about too is losing all perspective on this. Don't let a robot competition become a higher priority than your grades. It doesn't do the students any good to win tournaments and not get into solid college programs. It doesn't do our sponsors any good if we're not producing future technical leaders at the expense of winning a tournament.