The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

[sanddrag]

I dislike the fact that because there are really no limits on working after stop build day, we invest thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to build an identical practice robot, when we could much more easily (but not currently 'legally') have only one robot and no bag. We are spending all this time and money to because we are required to put a few mils of plastic between ourselves and something we can just make two of and continue development on. In that sense, the bagging is absurd. But, it does have it's benefits, as indicated by numerous others previously.

Anyhow, consider this mentor burnt to a crisp. FRC is becoming a competition of which team has more experienced people who can sideline the greatest percentages of their lives for the greatest amount of time. It's a battle of who can sacrifice the most, and it's not healthy. It's tough to keep up.

I wouldn't mind seeing something imposed that said "FRC teams may only meet a maximum of 6 days per week, and may elect which day per week they choose as their non-work day. On the non-work day, team members may not design, fabricate, assemble, procure, or program any piece of the robot, or take part in any activities directly related to FIRST Robotics." Of course it's not enforceable, and teams would find a way to bend the rule, but it would be nice to go home for even just one day per week. Come to think of it, this isn't really any less enforceable than bagging, which is honor system anyhow. FIRST HQ, I haven't wished much of you, but for 2014, my wish is to make us go home once in a while. Thoughts?