The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Bongle

The problem with self-discipline as a solution is that self-discipline essentially means: "choose between having a non-FIRST life or being competitive".

I hear your point, but the problem is that sustainability is ALREADY a self discipline issue:

1) Teams have the same choice now, even with a stop build day. Ask 67 or 254 how many man-hours they put into perfecting their climber on the practice bot after they bagged the robot.

2) Our most successful robots ever were our simplest (mechanically anyhow). Many other teams fall into this category (1503's 2011 machine, 610's World Champion robot, etc.). Just like how cramming for a test into the wee hours of the morning has diminishing returns, there is something to be said for aiming for a simple-but-effective, master-of-one-trade robot and being able to be well rested when you work on it. If you want to build the swiss army knife of robots, well, you are asking for it.

3) The artificial constraint of not being able to touch your robot from Day X to Day Y (which seems even more arbitrary once you are in a district system and get 6 hours of access per event) actually impedes your ability to balance FIRST and life, since all direct work on the robot can only fall on certain days/hours.