How much time do you spend on FIRST?

[russell]

This is something that has been interesting me. How much time do you spend on your robot (or animation, website, whatever)? I noticed that some teams seem to only meet a few days a week, whereas others seem to meet every day. So my question could actually be broken down into
a. How often and for how long does your team meet?
b. How much time do you spend outside of actual meetings working on material related to your robot?

I know that my team met every single day from the day of the kickoff to ship date. On school days we met from 2 until six or six thirty (and later near the end of the season) and on weekends and holidays (and inservice days and such) we met from 10 or 12 until 6 or seven (though it was more like 11 the last few days). I went to every meeting, though I had to leave early one day but altogether I totaled more than 220 hours in our shop. But then again we only had six people and only three of us really worked, and of those only two of us had done FIRST last year. So I got stuck designing and building the superstructure of our bot, the arm of our bot, and doing everything related to the camera and programming of our bot. Did we just not make very efficient use of our time (Actually I know we didnt), or do other teams spend this much time working also?

[jgannon]

Search first.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=17622

[Babyhueyhnx]

our team meets every day duing the week from 2 to about 4 or 4:30 and on saturdays from 8am to 4pm during the build season. pre build season we usually meet once a week as well as in the post build season.

I how ever spend countless hours and days working on stuff. most of the time i am teaching my self how to do stuff for fun but also helps during the build season. from web development to inventor to machining. I like to be well versed.

[Ellery]

The X-CATS has mandatory meetings for only Wed 4-7 pm and Sat 9-5. All other times are based on the individual subteam leaders to define as needed. We believe to give the team some breathing room since we do not want to tax our mentors times with their work and families and the students times from getting their homework done.

Students are full-time students FIRST and doing well in school is a priority and Mentors at Xerox we tell them that their work and families come first and it's up to them to balance that and their deliverables to the team.

I personally work on FIRST stuff all year long but that's just me since I have the FIRST disease.

Ellery

[EOC]

During the build season team 1208 met from 2 to 5 pm every week day and from 9 am to 5 pm on Saturdays and holidays.
I kept track this year and determined that our team logged approximately 3500 person hours during these times.
During the pre and post season we probably spent another 500 person hours fund-raising and preparing.

During build season we meet from on weekdays from 5-9 and Saturdays from 9-5. Occasionally, we have held meetings on Sundays and extended them from 9-9. Mentors usually arrive at 6 or 7 on weekdays.

How much time the team does work is debatable, usually we have a "working minority" of the team that acually has a job to do. These people are self-motivated and are the most dedicated.

[Pi Is Exactly 3]

Hmmm... lets see...

Ok so we meet every school day from 2-5 (sometimes a bit later) and then usually a 12-5 meeting on Saturday and Sundays are days off. BUT during the last week. We must stay till about 6 or 7 on school days and we're usually in school from 9-5 on Saturday AND Sunday.

Then lets count all the time at home I'm on AutoCAD or CD. IT NEVER ENDS !!!!

[neilsonster]

We generally stayed from 2:30 till 9 or 11 after school every day and on the past 4 weeks we stayed after 2 AM on friday and saturday then went for 31 hours (2 PM sat - 9PM sun) straight on the final weekend . After all that I still don't like our arm...mohsin.... *angry fist shake*

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Ellery

The X-CATS has mandatory meetings for only Wed 4-7 pm and Sat 9-5. All other times are based on the individual subteam leaders to define as needed. We believe to give the team some breathing room since we do not want to tax our mentors times with their work and families and the students times from getting their homework done.

Students are full-time students FIRST and doing well in school is a priority and Mentors at Xerox we tell them that their work and families come first and it's up to them to balance that and their deliverables to the team.

I personally work on FIRST stuff all year long but that's just me since I have the FIRST disease.

Ellery

That's pretty much me too though Ellery much more dedicated than I am (he's the only guy who seems to keep the site functional in the off season).

[Kims Robot]

Since we werent exactly sure what we were doing, but had a lot of interested and motivated kids, we met nearly every day:
Tuesday-Friday 6pm-10/11pm
Saturday & Sunday 11am-7pm

Mondays were our rest day. Not everyone met on every day, tuesday/thursday/saturday were our main days, but I and the teacher at the least were usually at the school all other days to help build.

The students couldnt always stay late, but it was hard for our mentors to get out of work early, so we had to do later meetings.

Personally, I had to do an estimate for my company of how much time the Harris engineers were putting into it. I found there were 3 tiers:
Me: 45+ hr/wk (ugh, on top of my job!)
Our dedicated mentors: 25-30 hr/wk
Our supporting mentors: >10hr/wk
It totalled something insane like 2400 hours in the 6 weeks. Now can you imagine what that would cost our company if they actually paid us for it?!? lol. Luckily we had some very dedicated folks, and some very GREAT parents who fed us almost nightly!!

[spyhunterk19]

During Build season, SPAM meats ( ha ha) from Monday-Thursday 6:30 to 8:30 and on Saturday from 10-4. Special sessions did arise at the end of build season. I was there till 130 the night before ship

[tiffany34990]

Originally Posted by spyhunterk19

During Build season, SPAM meats ( ha ha) from Monday-Thursday 6:30 to 8:30 and on Saturday from 10-4. Special sessions did arise at the end of build season.

we also do Friday night meetings to get things together in the pit.
and i work at home with things like the chairman's award, 5 year plan and various other projects for the team and then i have the southern Florida chapter of RCU to work on. so my life never stops dealing with first..even in school I'm working on things.

are we counting cd hrs...lol...

FIRST is simply well an addiction and so many of caught it

[Elgin Clock]

I am only posting this because the thread title, contradicts the question.

If you want to know how much time we (team 237) spend on building the robot, and when we do it.. See the other thread.

But, if you want to know how much time I spend on FIRST all year, then I will answer that.

Pretty much almost every waking thought, that doesn't not involve other (mildly compared) hobbies is spent thinking about FIRST. When I go somewhere, I wear a FIRST shirt, in hopes of someone asking me about it.

When I have a break at work, I am addicted to CD, and the thoughts and discussions it brings (whether good or bad - it's all relative).

While I am working on other tasks, such as work, or tearing apart my truck, my mind tends to wander to how I learned something similar to what I am doing at that point on my FIRST team.

When I look for something to do on a weekend, I tend to lean toward FIRST related things, or activities with people from FIRST, either my team, or others.

When I watch TV, I see things that remind me of FIRST. Such as a GE commercial a few years ago during the Olympics, in which I immediately pointed out a FIRST robot in.

Some may call it an obsession and they may be right, but I call it a huge learning experience.

It's all about inspiration after all.
And being inspired is just as important as inspiring others.