Quote:
Originally Posted by aryker
I'm surprised more people haven't brought this point up already. I always viewed stop build day as beneficial because of the experience it gives to the students--namely, the experience of a hard deadline that everyone would prefer to be just a little bit further away.
As CEO of an engineering consulting company, I see these at work all the time, and every time I do I'm grateful for the experience I had on my high school FRC team that prepared me for it. It's valuable for these kids to learn that no one is going to wait on you in the real world, and that whenever you see a deadline on a calendar you should treat it as immovable and plan accordingly. I know my clients appreciate this approach, and I can't think of a single situation in life where this mindset would steer anyone wrong.
|
When stop build day goes away, we will trade a very squishy deadline for one that is absolute. Should you fall short of stop build day goals, you have at least a week (and often many more) to decide and implement your withholding strategy. Should you not finish your robot by the event, you have no fallback since your Sunday robot can't earn you any points.
Honestly, in both approaches students get great exposure to hard deadlines that no amount of pleading can move. I think removing stop build day potentially makes the teaching deadlines more memorable (or at least more painful) since you don't have the safety net of the withholding allowance.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." -- Douglas Adams