Quote:
Originally Posted by marshall
Eliminate bag day.
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I'm just Not seeing this helping at all. Bag day is when we stop spending money. During build, we have a burn-rate of hundreds-of-dollars a week. The day we bag is the day that stops. Bag day saves money.
Bag day is when I go home at night and see my family again. I can sustain not eating dinner at home for only so long before they forget my name. Bag day keeps mentors sustainable.
If we built a second-robot after bag day (we normally don't) we would keep designing, building parts and spending money--and building two copies of everything--that would actually cost more than not bagging. But I don't really want that.
If you don't have bag day, can you point to any team that would use that as a reason to Not build a second (or third or fourth) robot? No, those teams will still be doing that.
Also with no bag day, our drivers would practice, practice, practice and get much better than they are. But every hour the robot is moving, something is breaking and though that's going to allow us to improve the robot, it also will cost money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sperkowsky
The biggest reason I see teams die has nothing to do with funding. It's loss of their primary mentor. I don't think that's really something that can be easily fixed which is a shame.
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I think Sperkowsky's comment here breaks into two catagories:
1. Many teams fold after just one or two years. I think money is a big factor for these--when they lose the rookie-team grants, finding money is a big shock. Usually mentors have to find that money.
2. Mentoring is usually fun, but every year there are huge headaches and conflicts between people (other mentors and students). If you have single mentors carrying too many headaches, it's very negative. The rewards of being a mentor have to exceed the negatives. I don't know how you can increase the reward. I think you have to decrease the negatives. Spread them between more people?
Sadly, a team has a life, just like a person and every team is on an arc to someday fold. Just like a company. Just like any organization. If you want to keep a team alive and vital, you just have to plan for the inevitabilities...losing funding, losing build space, losing people. And this planning is hard, sometimes insurmountable.
One solution to a mentor quitting killing a team is that mentors can recruit their replacement before they quit/retire. When I was recruited, it was made clear to me who I was replacing. Every mentor is on an arc to someday leave or retire too. Just like cells in a body, there has to be a plan to replace them.