Average number of hours per week?

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

Hi everyone!

I'm working with a woman who is trying to start an FLL team at a nearby elementary school in Cambridge, MA. She wants to know if meeting two hours per week is sufficient to prepare for the competition. This sounds too low for me, but I was hoping to get a better idea of how many hours per week teams usually put in from people who have participated in FLL before. I'm sure there is a large range, so I'd like to get as much feedback as possible. Thanks for your help - I'm hoping we'll be able to make this team a reality!

Ellen

Assuming the team is going to get started in September in preparation for a late November / early December competition, you can probably get by with meeting for two hours a week. However, it will not be easy and the team would probably only be able to complete a handful of missions on the mat, unless they used their time very efficiently. The teams I've worked with usually are doing about 4-6 hours per week, plus one or two full Saturday cram sessions towards crunch time. In addition, there's the time spent outside of regular meetings by the students on the research project.

I have seen a lot of teams compete who've only put in the hours you've described. It's definitely possible, but probably not ideal.