Homework V.S Robotics

[~Cory~]

just do robotics.

Or you just not sleep (3 APs, 1 actual college course. I get about 5 hours. On weekends I sleep for about 18. the extra rest really helps)

[math311]

Cory, are you at Arrowhead by chance?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ~Cory~

just do robotics.

Or you just not sleep (3 APs, 1 actual college course. I get about 5 hours. On weekends I sleep for about 18. the extra rest really helps)

Neither of those is the right choice. Robotics, as fun as it is, cannot replace your coursework, which you'll need to graduate. Sleep is essential as well. If I try to go beyond about 2-3 AM without sleeping, I start becoming less and less functional, and caffeine doesn't do much to extend that time. All-nighter? I'll try to get a couple hours of sleep in beforehand, and I'll be functional for another several hours before needing food/sleep/caffeine again.

How important is sleep? The design lab here at college put closed hours in place, running from 2:00 AM to 7:30 AM, to get students out to get some sleep and do homework (the ones that were still functional enough to do homework). Note, this is the rough equivalent of a robotics team's shop...

For someone like me, the priorities are: Homework, sleep, design team(s); I try to get out of the lab a bit every now and again, doing various things to have fun.

[Hawiian Cadder]

Last year I didn't do so well with juggling robotics. My advice, make sure to keep up in your hard classes, the easier classes are better to take a hit in. If you can, do homework during low times in robotics, for example as a part of the cad team I don't need to work 100% of the time except from weeks 1-2.

[Chris is me]

If you're taking any hit at all, are your priorities straight?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

If you're taking any hit at all, are your priorities straight?

Definitely.

Take a step back, make sure your grades aren't dropping full letter grades. A lot easier to do this kind of balancing act in high school than college. And if you already find yourself with dropping grades in high school...well then good luck doing activities in college.

[Brandon Holley]

Some good advice in here already.

Going through my last couple years of college at Northeastern taught me a lot about time management. The biggest piece of advice I'll give you is to try and learn to start thinking a week or two ahead of time. If you can see ahead at what blocks of free time you'll have and plan around them, you will be able to make much better use of your time.

For example, my schedule would often have gaps in it based on what classes I had that day. I may have blocks of time where I have an hour or two off between classes. I got the majority of my work done in these breaks. I could stagger and plan my assignments based on when they were due and how important they were.

Studying for exams was another critical skill. I developed a system that worked for me that allowed me to best retain the information I would gather from a large study session. What worked for me, often didn't work for my friends, so it's important to learn about yourself and develop your own set of learning tools.

It's all about working efficiently. Don't watch TV and do homework at the same time, or cruise the internet intermittently while you are studying. It will only make you spend more time (which you won't have) on it.

It's good that you are recognizing this a hurdle to being involved in FIRST. Just about every student will need to deal with this, so tackling it head on is definitely the best course of action.

-Brando

[brndn]

I have 4 APs plus other courses this year, and I'm our team's VP, and I'm so glad I'm not the only one. My main focus is attempting to do whatever simple homework possible whenever given a minute free. I'll stay up at night working on reports and such, but simple nightly assignments are done whenever I find a moment.

[cadmanDOM910]

I manage to balance robotics (which goes pretty much year round for my team) with daily football practices and during the winter hockey practices... on top of this I have 3 AP classes 2 honors classes as well as a business class and economics... its a lot of work to do but its all about time management which is something u learn as u go through high school. I've always been a busy kid so whenever I get a few minutes to work on homework I do. Even if you only get a couple questions done each time its still more than u had done before. When you're working on homework stay focused, don't let your mind wander off... just get it done... one more thing that helps me a lot is dividing and conquering amongst friends for large assignments... doing that only works if youre paying attention when u talk about the answers though... I don't condone cheating but if it comes down to losing 2 hours of sleep or just trading the answers of confusing questions and talking about them tomorrow before school is take the trade part... I do all these things and maintain a 4.1 so it should work for others too... that's my $.02

[RogerR]

Originally Posted by cadmanDOM910

I manage to balance robotics (which goes pretty much year round for my team) with daily football practices and during the winter hockey practices... on top of this I have 3 AP classes 2 honors classes as well as a business class and economics... its a lot of work to do but its all about time management which is something u learn as u go through high school. I've always been a busy kid so whenever I get a few minutes to work on homework I do. Even if you only get a couple questions done each time its still more than u had done before. When you're working on homework stay focused, don't let your mind wander off... just get it done... one more thing that helps me a lot is dividing and conquering amongst friends for large assignments... doing that only works if youre paying attention when u copy though... I don't usually condone cheating but if it comes down to losing 2 hours of sleep or just trading answers tomorrow before school is take the trade part... I do all these things and maintain a 4.1 so it should work for others too... that's my $.02

come again?

I may be misunderstanding your post, but it sounds like you're saying that you and your friends are cheating your way to high grades in your AP classes.

If I'm wrong, please clarify.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by RogerR

I may be misunderstanding your post, but it sounds like you're saying that you and your friends are cheating your way to high grades in your AP classes.

If I'm wrong, please clarify.

Especially if you or your friends are in the running for class valedictorian or salutatorian. Public admissions of unethical behavior can be very damaging not only to yourself but all implicated.

Study groups can be a critical method to use, both in secondary and postsecondary education, and I think any educator would be in favor of them. But when it's just trading answers, not only is that unfair to the classmates who actually do the work, but the offenders don't really learn the material in the first place. When you cheat, you mostly cheat yourself.

[cadmanDOM910]

Originally Posted by RogerR

come again?

I may be misunderstanding your post, but it sounds like you're saying that you and your friends are cheating your way to high grades in your AP classes.

If I'm wrong, please clarify.

What I meant by that is that we work togegether on assignments to try and figure different problems out. Then we trade them before school, and then we talk about how we got that answer. I by no means meant to make it sound like we divided up problems and then copied the other persons. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I now realize my post was worded very oddly.

[jackie.ann08]

On our team, we would take our homework with us to the shop since there was a group of us who had a ton of homework. I found it easier because if I needed a break from homework, I got up and went to work on the robot and vice versa.

Study groups are the way to go! Time management is a tricky but invaluable lesson from your FIRST experience.

Good luck!

[VKP]

One of the most difficult things I have had to do is balance my IB and AP workload with attending Robotics meetings. In my second year of IB, starting January of 2011, I had numerous essays (Extended Essay, TOK Essay, World Lit essays, Math portfolios, Physics labs, and more) to write and perfect, as well as presentations to do (Extended Essay Presentation, TOK Presentation, English Oral Commentary, Spanish Oral Exam). All of this came right in the middle of the Robotics Build season.

However, I decided even before build season started that both IB and Robotics were important, and that I would not compromise on either. I made sure never to fall behind on my IB work and even worked as far ahead as I could whenever I found a slot of free time, so that in the future I would have less work to do and hence more time for robotics. I ended up having to miss only a few meetings, and I was able to do quite well on my IB diploma, receiving a 38/45 points.

In short, I had a ridiculous amount of work to do, but I managed to stay on top of it by getting work done whenever I had free time.