The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

[OZ_341]

I pulled this quote of mine from a 2009 thread on this topic.
This is just an observation I had from Kick-off 2000, but the quote is classic Woodie Flowers:
Back in the olden days (2000) the only kick-off was in New Hampshire, they used to let people line up at a microphone and ask questions after the game was revealed.
After Dean and Woodie had fielded several questions, an annoyed mentor stepped to the microphone and said something like....."Why don't you give us more time? Why don't you give us 10 weeks instead of 6 weeks?"
Woodie stepped to the microphone and said with a smile....."Because we like you"!
Dean and Woodie understood even back then that extending build season would only make things worse and simply extend our agony.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

I don't see the point. Teams competing in different weeks aren't competing against each other, unless there's some weird time warp that allows that in the Pacific Northwest .

The qualification system is still based on how you do in the event you attend. OPR (which improves every week) is not a qualifier for the world championship.

In a district system where district Championship attendance is predicated upon points earned through competition, though, isn't it plausible that a team competing in week 1 and week 6 is at a disadvantage to a team competing in week 5 and week 6?

The total time spent on the robot may be the same, but the functional state of the robot may be quite different between the former and latter at their first event. In other words, while team A has 7 weeks before they have to compete for the first time, team B has 11 weeks. Our robot would certainly perform better after 11 weeks of work than it does after 7.

I guess, if you presume that everyone is equally handicapped at 7 weeks, it makes no difference. I think our current experience shows us that certain teams do MUCH more in 6 or 7 weeks than others. So, in the end, the teams are appreciably better today would be appreciably better without a stop-build day, but everyone gets better overall. I suppose that makes sense.

Okay, I concede. But I still might die if I have to do for another six weeks.

[Don Wright]

Originally Posted by Madison

Our robot would certainly perform better after 11 weeks of work than it does after 7.

But wouldn't that be true also of the robots you would be competing against at that event?

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by Madison

Are folks advocating an extended build season (e.g. 9 weeks) or the elimination of a stop-build deadline altogether?

If the latter, what would you recommend to minimize the advantage a team competing late in the season has over someone who, perhaps necessarily, competes in week 1? Would you attempt to minimize the advantage at all?

We meet 3 times a week during build; twice during the work week and on Saturdays. Later in the season, we meet more frequently as required. I'm pretty well ready to die after 6 weeks now; I can see how making the time allowed longer could help, but I also see where it wouldn't make much difference and the pain would only be prolonged.

It's more the latter.

I'm not sure there would be an advantage to competing later in the season. It seems like the level of competition later in the season would increase much higher than an early competition (we see similar now)... that it may or may not be a benefit to compete later. It may be in a teams best interest to register for an early regional and get a robot completed quickly, so they can get a win against a slightly lower level of competition. Then continue to develop their machine as time goes on for additional competitions later in the season.

We have a similar design/build schedule. We are not working every day all 6 weeks. We work Tuesday / Thursday 4:15-7:30pm and Satuday 8am-4pm for the majority of the build season. When we need to work more later in the season, we do...or even after.

So yes, I could easily justify to our sponsor (although we don't need too) that we would "only" be working 36 out of 54 available days.

-Adam

[rick.oliver]

I agree that access to your competition robot after the six week build season would "raise the floor" as many have said. By how much is debatable.

I also agree that extending the build process into the competition season would have little to no impact on mentor (or student, parent, coach, ...) burnout. It is true that the work expands to fill the time available, at least for most of us I think that would be true.

I really enjoy "continual improvement" and I believe that there is great value to the students in that experience.

The present system of events spread over six or seven weeks with the ability of teams to attend as many as they can afford creates the opportunity for some to benefit from their extra efforts to acquire the resources to evolve their machines.

I do not see much, if any difference, between completely eliminating the bagging requirements versus allowing some limited time through the competition season for working on the competition robot. EDIT: And as stated in another post, there is little difference between no bagging and having a 30 lb allowance.

I do wonder what unintended (and unwanted) consequences would ensue from lifting the "bag and tag" requirement? Would it impact the participation at early competition events? Other than dispel the myth that all of this great work is done in six weeks, I am hard pressed to to see a negative impact.

I am firmly in the camp of eliminate the bagging requirement. The only stop work date should be ship date for the Championship event.

[JesseK]

Forget the build cycle, the practice bots, etc.

The level of dedication required to sustain a successful technical career and a successful team as a mentor will continue to rise, eventually beyond a tipping point, for a team that wants to make it into Eliminations or better at Championships. The technical job market, where nerds compete to have meaningful impact on the projects at work for which they're passionate, is far more competitive than even IRI. A wife & house on top of that is hard enough, but add kids into the mix and it'd get tougher still.

Mentors are the keystone to the level of competitiveness in FRC -- and any student on a highly competitive team is better for it in the long run. Some geographic areas lack one type of mentor or another (for example, my area is light on the mechanical side but is overflowing with software & business). One solution is to get more mentors involved -- but how, on a sustainable basis? Another is to partner teams up who are heavy on one, yet light on another, but that's another topic for another thread (and something we're trying for 2014).

The posts quoted after me in this thread showcase an interesting few points, and I waited to respond to Adam until a few more people came in. My original statement wasn't to start an argument, but really to start a discussion on how 341 and other very successful teams are able to motivate their team to excellence for 4 months of out of the year. Is there a core of mentors who can come in when needed? Is there 'that 1 guy who loves the robot more than life'? Are the kids told 'the mentors are here, and so you shall be as well"? We've tried a variety of things on my team, with mixed results. I'd love to hear what works for a given team's circumstances.

I think that the specific discussion regarding removal of the 6-week cap is far bigger than ChiefDelphi. There are many voices which aren't represented on these forums. The 9-person team I talked to last night (1 technical mentor) doesn't have anyone who even reads CD, for example.

[Doug G]

Oh my heavens, we need to keep the 6-week deadline and if anything, get ride of the 30 lbs of fabbed parts rule. If I remember right, there was a time, you couldn't bring any fabricated parts to a competition, now teams can slap on a whole new shooter or intake at a competition.

Mentor burnout is a serious issue and I know for me personally, extending the build times will overwork our volunteers and myself. When we are overworked, we won't be volunteering at competitions, volunteering for community outreach events, etc. This is bad for FIRST!

Keep the 6 weeks and modify the fabricated components weight limit... (maybe 15 lbs?)

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Madison

In a district system where district Championship attendance is predicated upon points earned through competition, though, isn't it plausible that a team competing in week 1 and week 6 is at a disadvantage to a team competing in week 5 and week 6?

The total time spent on the robot may be the same, but the functional state of the robot may be quite different between the former and latter at their first event. In other words, while team A has 7 weeks before they have to compete for the first time, team B has 11 weeks. Our robot would certainly perform better after 11 weeks of work than it does after 7.

No it's not a disadvantage, because everyone competiting in week 1 events have all had 7 weeks at that point. Everyone in the week 5 events have had 11 weeks, etc. In other words, your robot may have gotten better from week 1 to week 5, but so has everyone else's robot so the comptition around you is better. Once again, you're not competing against a set standard, you're competing against the other teams at that competition who have all had the same amount of time.

I'm actually going to advocate that the 6 week limit is a DISADVANTAGE to teams that compete late, especially in the district system.

Take team A who decides to attend events on weeks 4 and 6. With the current system, team A will have trouble going up against the 30+ teams at that event that have already competed in one event and have already had one event worth of refinement, practice, and fix-it windows. Team A is at a big disadvantage with the 6 week window. This is one of the reasons why we never schedule our first event after week 2.

[Madison]

For what it's worth, I edited my earlier post a bit. I didn't think my position through entirely.

I think we could look to FTC a bit to see how a season with no end plays out. I can't speak for any other than the three teams we field and the few we've shared a build space with, but we end up cramming as much in near the end as we do for FRC. We're far less intense about our work in the early part of the season than we are in FRC, though; we don't make effective use of the additional time.

[Nemo]

I am completely in favor of eliminating the six week (or any number of weeks) deadline. The build deadline certainly did not prevent our team from working hard in March and April. But it did cause us to work more slowly and cost us more money. I see no benefit to the build deadline.

Eliminating the 30 lb allowance would lower the quality of robots o n the field substantially, and that matters. Kids who get a chance to actually get their robot working properly have a better experience. The changes we make to a robot during the season provide some of the best engineering experiences.

I think robotics teams need to figure out how to exist with a nucleus of team members who show up nearly all the time but still receive contributions from mentors and students who are there, say, twice a week. It should be okay for mentors to stick with a level of time commitment that works with their lives.

[MrJohnston]

There is also a huge value in having to make a difficult deadline. The six week time period is very short and every team knows it. Teams then have to evaluate their ideas and determine which ones are the most important and attainable before the deadline. Moreover, it forces them to operate under stress - all the while trying to maintain gracious professionalism.

Frankly, learning the teamwork and leadership required to build a robot under those conditions is more valuable than the technical skills acquired.

[CENTURION]

Originally Posted by Madison

For what it's worth, I edited my earlier post a bit. I didn't think my position through entirely.

I think we could look to FTC a bit to see how a season with no end plays out. I can't speak for any other than the three teams we field and the few we've shared a build space with, but we end up cramming as much in near the end as we do for FRC. We're far less intense about our work in the early part of the season than we are in FRC, though; we don't make effective use of the additional time.

I'll second the FTC comparison. BadgerBOTS as an organization supports four FTC teams, in the past season I interacted with three of them (we all work out of the same space), and I am head coach on one of them. All of those teams met pretty casually around the start of the season, and then started cramming it in towards the end.

As far as the six week build goes, I'm definitely for keeping it. I imagine that i fyou made it nine weeks, most teams would end up working the same hours per week that they do currently, for three more weeks.

Plus, I think it's useful for showing students what you can achieve when you really push hard and work for it. Every season starts with the students (and mentors too!) saying "Oh man, how the heck are we going to make this happen in six weeks?!?! It's crazy!" But by the end, you have a working robot that nobody thought would be possible, but there it is. I think you lose some of that excitement and sense of accomplishment if you don't have that deadline.

As Woodie Flowers put it once (I'm paraphrasing): "It's a problem too large, with a budget too small, a staff too big, and a deadline too short."

[SM987]

It's very personal and team dependent. Will it level the playing field somewhat? I believe so. Those "elite" teams will improve say 5-10% with the extended build season while teams that have a rolling chassis by week 6 will improve considerably more. Will it reduce mentor stress? I can say in our team's case it probably would not. I suppose if we didn't have to build a practice bot (no stop build) it might reduce it some (not much). The student grades dropping is another good point. There are many sides to the argument. I'm torn between the "if it aint broke don't fix it" and the fact that the level of competition would rise if they lifted the restriction. I feel like it should be one or the other; either we bag/ship it and there's a much more stringent/small withholding allowance, or just leave it open. With 30lbs of withholding this year, it may as well have been an unlimited build season.

[Michael Leicht]

So I see this is a back and forth between if the 6 week deadline is really needed.

What I am more curious about and want to know is

Why do mentors get burned out?
What are some stories about a fellow mentors or yourself and burnt you out?
When they get burnt out do they come back after a year or done with it for good?

[SM987]

Originally Posted by MikeL303

Why do mentors get burned out?

Are we looking for an answer more sophisticated than addiction?

Seriously I have done nothing more intense, rewarding, and fun.

EDIT: I get it, that "burnout" implies it is no longer fun. I haven't personally experienced that yet. There have been nights where it's 3 a.m. and I am just exhausted, but I've never stepped past the no-longer-fun line. I think if that ever happens I'd have to stop.