The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by SM987

With 30lbs of withholding this year, it may as well have been an unlimited build season.

Yep. We used much of our 30lbs allowance at each of our events (4 events * 30 lbs allowed at each = one entirely new robot). Add in unbagging hours for District events and we basically had a build season that went from January until May.

"Stop build day" really doesn't exist. Since we "stopped build", we re-designed and re-built our shooter, our intake, our shoulder joint, our loading mechanism, and our 10 pt hanger (literally every function of our robot other than the drive base).

And let me tell you: a 4 month build season kicked our butts. Easter weekend was the first weekend since kickoff that we didn't work on the robot. I think my wife forgot who I am. Many of our mentors are burnt out, and I don't think it's a coincidence that several of us had very bad winters/springs when it comes to illness (the students don't seem to mind, but they are young and energetic and can rotate in and out more than the mentors who are in the critical path).

Most of the pain was self-inflicted. We chose to pursue a very ambitious design, had some manufacturing delays that backed things up, and ultimately set a lofty standard for our robot performance and refused to rest until we met it. If at some point the deadline is extended or eliminated, teams will need to rethink how they look at build season. 6 weeks of "full speed ahead" is really all you can take.

In the end, our robot was pretty good, and we went 7-1 and seeded 5th in Newton. We would not have been able to do that without withholding allowances and unbagging time. In hindsight, if we didn't have to worry about building a practice robot, or building upgrade mechanisms separate from the rest of the competition machine, or spending the first few hours at competition frantically installing our upgrades, our season would have been somewhat less stressful. But honestly, it still would have been on the verge of unsustainable.

Since there really is no such thing as a "6 week build season" for a team like ours, there is really only one way to solve the burnout problem: self-discipline. Teams need to set their own limits and pace themselves. Karthik's talk isn't just about how to make a winning robot; it's about how to keep your sanity.

If we come to the realization that self-discipline is the only thing that will prevent burnout (whether a 6, 8, or N week build season), then I don't see why we need a stop build deadline and the additional stresses it can cause.

The only other option that makes sense is completely eliminating withholding allowances, and going back to the days where half the robots on any given field can't accomplish the game challenge.