Quote:
Originally Posted by jman4747
My final point that wasn't mentioned is students seem to get more motivated when build season is on. There's a since of agency that doesn't exist otherwise and people tend to be slightly more motivated. This time is thus a great time to teach a student (especially the more complex/hard stuff) except you have less time for that because the robot needs to work.
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I think this is a great argument for a strict 6 week build season. I've seen what often happens with a soft or too far away deadline--there is no sense of urgency, and things just don't get done. The bag day deadline makes me push hard to get our team moving right away, and keep moving, because I know we have to have something looking and working like a robot by the end of week 4, if we want to do well at the competition.
I don't expect to be able to teach students many complex things during build. Sometimes it happens...but there is all school year for this to learning take place. It is difficult to get motivated sufficiently without the hectic bag day deadline. But is removing that deadline going to help? If you lengthen the build time so you can spend time teaching new complex material, you also remove the urgency that is needed to motivate this learning. It sounds to me like Catch 22.