Quote:
Originally Posted by chapman1
Our team has only a handful of mentors, and all are actively employed. Some have to take vacation time in order to attend after-school work sessions or to participate in weekday events.
|
Wouldn't extending build season to include several more weekends be to your benefit? I won't pretend to know how your team operates, but I can tell you about our experience last season. Virtually all of our mentors work in the Silicon Valley tech industry, have to commute to the school for robotics, and a growing number of us are starting families - we know all about the time commitments that mentors face.
After years of 7 day weeks and long nights, 254 finally switched to a time-boxed* evening and weekend schedule last season, and as far as I'm concerned there's no turning back. It gives students time to do homework, mentors days off to work and be with family, and everyone the precious sleep they need. When we made this switch, we realized how ~40% of the time we were spending at build while exhausted and frustrated was wasted, and that a more spread-out schedule allows everyone to catch their breath, parts to arrive, and work sessions to be more focused.
Things were a lot better this season, but there's still room for improvement.
* the final week before competition is always an exception...
Quote:
Originally Posted by chapman1
Further, when the competition season finally ends, we have to spend the next several months catching up with our personal and professional lives. Extending the build season would make it nearly impossible for us to ever catch up.
|
I've participated in FRC for more than half my life on a couple of teams, as a student and as a mentor. The years where I was most disciplined about how much time I spent through the season were the most rewarding for me, for the students, and were reflected in the on- and off-field successes of the team. I know it's easy to get pot committed and suddenly end up in your build space every afternoon, but you gotta stay disciplined. It's a lot more sustainable to not fall behind than it is to have to play catch up. Many of the restrictions of stop-build day make this harder than it needs to be.
Since you've pretty well established that you are near the "5" end of the survey spectrum, I was wondering: What do you think of the proposal that all teams receive a limited (~4-6 hour) unbagging window during each week of the competition season?