Need some advice: Annual down times

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

I need CD's advice. My team, Team 256, runs well during the build season, and the same during the time of offseason events. But when we're not in competition, we go to a team stand-still, mainly in the November - December and the entire summer ranges. I know that both are break times, but the time in December is the time when we're dead the most (aside from me), and it's also the time when we need to be doing the most.

Aside from the CALGames offseason, we do almost no training, no meetings, or anything else the first semester of school, and when it gets time to build season, it really hinders the team. I know the mentors need breaks, but this time is sort of crucial for FRC teams like us.

What do you think?

In order to give mentors a break, we would try to run offseasons by ourselves aside from if mentors have to travel with the team for liability. If liability is the case, we have mentors on 11 who travel with the team as the supervision. You can also get parents who get approved as adjust mentors. This allows the mentors to have plenty of down time after the main competition season.

As for October-December, try meeting twice a week with multiple mentors taking shifts on a bi-weekly basis. This allows everyone to run training sessions but also rest up before the main build season.

Talk to your mentors. Tell them why the summer and fall activities are crucial to a team's success and that the students can take ownership of the team at offseason events to take stress off mentors. As long as you keep it a give and take relationship on the team, you'll find that everyone is able to work out their own downtime so that they don't get burnt out. Main points: get more mentors so time can be spread around, and show more student responsibility so the adults on the team will be able to trust the students to do more of the work.

Hope that helps.

[Ankit S.]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

As for October-December, try meeting twice a week.

I second this. A meeting schedule like to hours on Tuesday and 3 hours on Saturday is probably one of the better ones during the offseason. This allows you to meet once every 3-4 days, and you get to squeeze in a meeting during the weekend, and one during school days.

However, make sure you keep people busy during meetings. What they do doesn't need to be really intensive, it can be something as simple as drilling holes in wood for practice.

Good Luck!

[DonRotolo]

During the pre-season, our focus is teaching the skills and transferring the knowledge that will be most necessary during build season. I do not want to be showing someone how to drill a round, straight hole on January 9, they need to know how already. Or strip & crimp, or use Loctite, or wire the digital sidecar, or... You get the idea.

We also use it as a way for team leadership to identify talent (or lack of).

We meet several times from September to early December for this.

[pfreivald]

We meet every Wednesday year-round, with additional meetings as circumstances dictate (and the occasional cancellation as circumstances dictate); from the end of championship to the end of final exams we deliberately don't do a whole lot for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to:

• We need a bit of a break.
• It's my busiest time as a beekeeper.
• Academics! (AP exams, final exams, final projects, etc.)

It's a great idea to do off-season projects as a training regimen. This summer we worked on something we didn't finish, but it gave some of our never-evers experience working with tools, machines, etc. All those parts have been saved, and we'll finish up that project next summer...

With the sudden urge to take advantage of Gates's amazing generosity with sprockets and drive belts, we decided to meet every Thursday and Saturday in December (except Christmas Eve) to prototype a new drive train before the build season begins. Still not cheap, but the huge majority of the parts will be reusable as COTS items. Incorporated into this project, we're doing safety training, AutoDesk Inventor training, LabView training, TIG welding training, etc.

tl;dr version: Off-season projects are a great way to stay engaged all year, but don't feel bad about taking some time with minimal activity so that mentors and kids can recharge.

[Phyrxes]

Myself and the other teacher scheduled a meeting with our parents at the end of the school year last year to talk about what the team plans and expectations for the summer/fall would be leading up to build season.

The result of that meeting was we met once a month in the summer on a the third Saturday of the month all day to work on basic skills.

We took September off due to the first month of school and then have gone back to an every other week Saturday meeting since October. One of those weeks ended up being an offseason event, another was Thanksgiving so we skipped it, but making the schedule so far in advance made planning easier for everybody involved.

It looks like we managed to balance the time needed to train/refresh skills but at the same time not overburdening schedules so the students are going to really feel a crunch of school work during build season.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

We have something going all year long. Since the team is a ninth period class in our district, it requires a school year curriculum so that grades can be determined and generated within the school system. For this we use a variety of robotics related programs through the fall to instruct and give experience while accomplishing team building and safety training.

[Tommy F.]

Your team may want to consider starting an FTC team (or a few of them, depending on your team size)

This is what our team does during the fall to prepare rookies for FRC. The rookies learn basic concepts of teamwork and problem solving skills, as well as a taste of what the competition environment is like with gracious professionalism. The FTC season spans from around September to November, so it keeps our team busy.

Just something to consider.

[Carol]

Originally Posted by 7h0m54

Your team may want to consider starting an FTC team (or a few of them, depending on your team size)

This is what our team does during the fall to prepare rookies for FRC. The rookies learn basic concepts of teamwork and problem solving skills, as well as a taste of what the competition environment is like with gracious professionalism. The FTC season spans from around September to November, so it keeps our team busy.

Just something to consider.

Actually, the FTC season starts in September with competitions in November through March (and beyond if your team qualifies for St Louis). So, depending on your area, your FTC team could be finished by January or still be competing during the FRC build season.

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

We have something going all year long. Since the team is a ninth period class in our district, it requires a school year curriculum so that grades can be determined and generated within the school system. For this we use a variety of robotics related programs through the fall to instruct and give experience while accomplishing team building and safety training.

How is the class working for your district? What do you do in the offseason?

I've been trying to implement this since 8th grade. Do you have any advice on how to get it as a class?

[skimoose]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

How is the class working for your district? What do you do in the offseason?

I've been trying to implement this since 8th grade. Do you have any advice on how to get it as a class?

Carnegie Mellon, Intelitek, Autodesk, Project Lead the Way, and Analytical Integrated Math all have commercially available educational curriculums with robotics based emphasis. Using an off the shelf curriculum is the easiest way to implement one and they are not terribly expensive. Teachers should be able to find an educational grant to fund purchasing one of these programs.

The team, through one of our alums and Dean's List winner and a retired faculty member, are working towards implementing one of these programs in our school district as an honors level independent study. The idea is that our team will run the program during the off season at our meetings. The district is planning to remodel our two high schools in a few years. At that point we hope to help the district take our independent study program and turn it into a pre-engineering classroom curriculum.

Originally Posted by skimoose

Carnegie Mellon, Intelitek, Autodesk, Project Lead the Way, and Analytical Integrated Math all have commercially available educational curriculums with robotics based emphasis. Using an off the shelf curriculum is the easiest way to implement one and they are not terribly expensive. Teachers should be able to find an educational grant to fund purchasing one of these programs.

The team, through one of our alums and Dean's List winner and a retired faculty member, are working towards implementing one of these programs in our school district as an honors level independent study. The idea is that our team will run the program during the off season at our meetings. The district is planning to remodel our two high schools in a few years. At that point we hope to help the district take our independent study program and turn it into a pre-engineering classroom curriculum.

Thanks!

[Peter Matteson]

We meet all school year on Wednesday or Thursday night to keep continuity. The goal is to use this time to teach the new students CAD, programing, electrical or how to use the machine tools depending on the sub team they chose. We also do the majority of our fund raising planning and solicitation during this period so we can hold our pasta dinner/silent auction early in the build season.

In theory we will do a fall project, but in practice most of our fall training is conducted by maintianing our older robots that are used for practice and demo, as well as cleaning and organizing the shop which tends to get a bit disorganized over the year. We also spend quite a bit of time in the fall creating new drivetrain evolutions as practice and planning for various types of fields.

[Peyton Yeung]

Our team has meetings on Tuesdays but maintains open shop sessions on Tuesday and Friday nights as well as Saturdays. We also have software meetings on Monday nights.

During the summer and fall we are usually working on projects or renovating old projects.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

How is the class working for your district? What do you do in the offseason?

I've been trying to implement this since 8th grade. Do you have any advice on how to get it as a class?

Andrew,
Our students long ago made a presentation to the school board. They felt they were working as hard or harder than students in the band or orchestra who receive grades and credit. The school board agreed. ( We have a great school board who support us and come out to competitions and demos!) Their requirements were that we have a curriculum and a method of determining grades and a minimum of meeting time each week (3 hours). During the fall we have the team break into groups/small teams. A small number of students are involved in software training. The rest will form a single FTC team and several VEX teams. These all work on robots in preparation for competition during this time of the year. The VEX teams then compete in a mini competition and the higher performing teams go on to a regional. Four team qualified and two made it into the finals over this past weekend. One was on the Champion alliance. The FTC team will compete in a regional event and then to state which we have participated in since it's inception. During the fall we take attendance having students sign in and out. We will meet a minimum of three hours on Monday nights and additional time as the teams determine. Adults will then observe and mentor each group and pass info along to the teachers. This evaluation along with homework helps determine grades. During the fall, experienced students will make presentations on the sub teams that have worked on and then students will make a list of first, second and third choices for a sub team. In December, they will be given a sub team assignment and begin working within their sub team. After kickoff everyone is in full build season mode, all working on assignments and continuing with homework. (usually answering questions based on research) While working on subteams, students are again evaluated for grades, participation and quality of work. We are a larger team than most with 60 students. Subteams are mechanical, electrical, software, strategy, animation, Chairman's/Hall of Fame/community service, fundraising, video, yearbook, Woodie Flowers, playing field. Students may participate in more than one subteam but will be evaluated on both. Grades are supreme and determine who travels, who is on pit crew and who is on drive team. If your grades fall, you cannot drive, or be on pit crew. I believe the criteria is to drive you need an A in robotics and no grades below a C. Pit crew is similar with C average and no failing or incomplete grades. Travel is a B in robotics and no failing or incomplete and carries a minimum fundraising limit as well. Our second regional each year is a skeleton team of primarily critical pit crew, drivers and strategy students. Less than 20 students will travel to the second regional and typically about 35 will travel to Championships.

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Andrew,
Our students long ago made a presentation to the school board. They felt they were working as hard or harder than students in the band or orchestra who receive grades and credit. The school board agreed. ( We have a great school board who support us and come out to competitions and demos!) Their requirements were that we have a curriculum and a method of determining grades and a minimum of meeting time each week (3 hours). During the fall we have the team break into groups/small teams. A small number of students are involved in software training. The rest will form a single FTC team and several VEX teams. These all work on robots in preparation for competition during this time of the year. The VEX teams then compete in a mini competition and the higher performing teams go on to a regional. Four team qualified and two made it into the finals over this past weekend. One was on the Champion alliance. The FTC team will compete in a regional event and then to state which we have participated in since it's inception. During the fall we take attendance having students sign in and out. We will meet a minimum of three hours on Monday nights and additional time as the teams determine. Adults will then observe and mentor each group and pass info along to the teachers. This evaluation along with homework helps determine grades. During the fall, experienced students will make presentations on the sub teams that have worked on and then students will make a list of first, second and third choices for a sub team. In December, they will be given a sub team assignment and begin working within their sub team. After kickoff everyone is in full build season mode, all working on assignments and continuing with homework. (usually answering questions based on research) While working on subteams, students are again evaluated for grades, participation and quality of work. We are a larger team than most with 60 students. Subteams are mechanical, electrical, software, strategy, animation, Chairman's/Hall of Fame/community service, fundraising, video, yearbook, Woodie Flowers, playing field. Students may participate in more than one subteam but will be evaluated on both. Grades are supreme and determine who travels, who is on pit crew and who is on drive team. If your grades fall, you cannot drive, or be on pit crew. I believe the criteria is to drive you need an A in robotics and no grades below a C. Pit crew is similar with C average and no failing or incomplete grades. Travel is a B in robotics and no failing or incomplete and carries a minimum fundraising limit as well. Our second regional each year is a skeleton team of primarily critical pit crew, drivers and strategy students. Less than 20 students will travel to the second regional and typically about 35 will travel to Championships.

I'll talk to the team and district people I know about that! I like it! I especially like your grade requirements!