[ay2b]

Originally Posted by neoshaakti

Many of the members on our team are really concerned about the commitment required during the 6-week build season, and don't think that they would be able to meet more than twice a week.
Part of my job as "leadership" is to give the rest of the team a clear idea of what the build season is going to look like commitment-wise.
Therefore,
How much individual commitment is required to be on your FRC team?

I know commitment is really relative, so if you'd rather say how many hours are spent each week during build season, that works too

thanks a whole bunch!

It is a big commitment. But it's worth it. Hopefully as the build progresses, the rest of the team will see that and want to come more often. Perhaps you could start with something like having 1/2 the team meet on Mon & Wed, and the other 1/2 on Tue & Thu, and everyone on Sat. That's only three times per week, which is not much more than the twice per week that people wanted, but allows for people who want to put in more time to easily start showing up more often.

There's been times I've put in an average of over 40 hours per week. Other years I've done less.

As "leadership" try to figure out early on how much time you will actually have people putting in (not what they say they'll put in, but what they'll actually do). Make sure you plan your design accordingly. Say you have 10 people meeting twice a week for 4 hours per session over 6 weeks. That's 480 man-hours of work. Say you have 10 people meeting for 40 hours per week over 6 weeks; that's 2400 man-hours of work. 480 man-hours spent on a simple design which requires only 450 man-hours to complete is going to perform much better than 2400 man-hours spent on a design which requires 3000 man-hours to complete.