The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

If you want the best robots and teams to get better on the field and are cool with asking those teams that want to be on-field competitive to start giving up other/more activities in their lives (mentors and students alike), then lengthen build, open up withholding allowance, etc.

There seems to be two major, very different opinions, on if opening up the deadline will or will not increase the amount of time/effort/dedication required to be competitive.

*Along with some other relevant, but less prevalent issues.

- Mentors against, state that with more time will lead to an increase in committment to fill that time and thus lead to more burn-out.

- Mentors for, state that teams are already working through the deadline, and that opening it up will actually relieve pressure caused by having to bag the competition robot.

We can't really know what FRC teams would or would not do based on this hypothetical situation. But, there are other "open season" robotics competition out there that are relatively comparable to FRC. Aren't both FTC and VEX, open season competitions? What happens in these types of competitions? Are the mentors burned out? Are they filling every hour of every day working on their machines? Are these even comparable to FRC mentors and robots?

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

We can't really know what FRC teams would or would not do based on this hypothetical situation. But, there are other "open season" robotics competition out there that are relatively comparable to FRC. Aren't both FTC and VEX, open season competitions? What happens in these types of competitions? Are the mentors burned out? Are they filling every hour of every day working on their machines? Are these even comparable to FRC mentors and robots?

Not comparable because of the everchanging FRC Kit of Parts. In FTC and VRC, we know* what's allowable and not allowable to be used before knowing the concept of the game. Since the FRC KoP is highly vendor- and game-dependent, a year-long season would be difficult at best.

An example: The router fiasco of 2012.

* other than basic, easily attainable items such as string or polycarbonate

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Not comparable because of the everchanging FRC Kit of Parts. In FTC and VRC, we know* what's allowable and not allowable to be used before knowing the concept of the game. Since the FRC KoP is highly vendor- and game-dependent, a year-long season would be difficult at best.

An example: The router fiasco of 2012.

* other than basic, easily attainable items such as string or polycarbonate

I guess I was more thinking along the lines of the access to the machines and how much time is spent working on them. Not really the year long season aspect of FTC/VEX.

Are FTC and VEX mentors/students working every minute of every day to perfect their designs? If not, are these competitions not as intense as FRC?

I ask just because I am looking for something to compare to a potential open build FRC season...and I have no knowledge of the other competitions because I spend all my time working on FRC or forgetting about it for a while in the off-season (Aug/Sept - Dec).

-Adam

[Hjelstrom]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

I guess I was more thinking along the lines of the access to the machines and how much time is spent working on them. Not really the year long season aspect of FTC/VEX.

Are FTC and VEX mentors/students working every minute of every day to perfect their designs? If not, are these competitions not as intense as FRC?

I ask just because I am looking for something to compare to a potential open build FRC season...and I have no knowledge of the other competitions because I spend all my time working on FRC or forgetting about it for a while in the off-season (Aug/Sept - Dec).

-Adam

I would say one main difference between FRC and VEX is that in VEX you can't just build one robot. The robot designs evolve as the season progresses. Good designs get copied rapidly and better designs have to be created in order to stay competitive. The entire robot typically gets re-designed a few times in a season. I believe FRC would become a season-long crunch as the best teams try to out-do each other by bringing new robots to each competition. Sure we all try to do that now but it is contained well by the rules.

[JesseK]

Adam I think your question has to go to the VEX forums to get the best answer, but there are plenty of successful VRC/FTC teams here that can give anecdotes.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Are FTC and VEX mentors/students working every minute of every day to perfect their designs? If not, are these competitions not as intense as FRC? -Adam

We meet five times a week during FRC season, and three times a week for FTC. After FRC starts, FTC has access to the shop for those extra days, and they tend to show up most of the time. Of course, I don't know how often we'd meet if I only had FTC to coach; I might meet a bit more often.

We definitely leave some time on the table in FTC, and we are still competitive at the state level.

[Joe G.]

I would say that the average VEX team does not take the competition as seriously as the average FRC team does, because the minimum entry costs are significantly lower. However, those at the top level are absolutely putting in every hour that they can, and perform multiple complete rebuilds over the course of the season.

I think that one of FRC's greatest assets is how seriously the average team takes the program, and as a result, the incredible things that they do not just on the robot side of things, but the chairman's side of things. If a greater time requirement to be competitive was present, I fear that the number of teams doing these things would diminish, and more would become "casual" teams like a majority of VRC teams. The open season does not guarantee quality in VRC, far from it. Rather, the majority of regional level VEX events today look a lot like some FIRST events in regions where people talk about "unsustainable growth" like Texas; lots of low quality teams with a few powerhouses. "Casual" VRC teams I've worked with spend large parts of build, for lack of a better term, goofing off, then pull a last-second crunch-build. I want the minimum possible number of FIRST teams to be like this. And on the flip side, VRC powerhouses take advantage of all the time they have. This drives the performance gap wider still.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

We can't really know what FRC teams would or would not do based on this hypothetical situation. But, there are other "open season" robotics competition out there that are relatively comparable to FRC. Aren't both FTC and VEX, open season competitions? What happens in these types of competitions? Are the mentors burned out? Are they filling every hour of every day working on their machines? Are these even comparable to FRC mentors and robots?

The FTC manual makes a point of stating, "The students do a majority of the work, but the mentor is there to offer guidance, suggestions, and coaching to keep the students on task and successful." Consequently, I respect that goal and am not as heavily involved with (or dedicated to, frankly) to our FTC program. It doesn't have the same appeal to me that FRC does. In the end, though, I think that if others are respecting the desire put forth in the manual, it's more difficult to compare FTC's open-ended season to FRC.

Some parallels can be drawn, but on our team, most people treat FTC as a diversion instead of something to be taken seriously on its own.

[ehochstein]

As a rookie FTC coach this year, my team was given a little over 5 months to build our robot. We started meeting in September, one day per week until December when we started meeting twice per week. Starting in January I also had commitments to two FRC teams. It was a huge mistake not to finish the FTC bot before then (and is now reflected in our schedule for next year) but we ended up doing the majority of our work during the last three weeks we had available. During the last three weeks we met everyday of the week to finish our robot, often until midnight.

I fear if we switch to a longer build season, those rookie teams will have the same problem, trying to finish everything during the last few weeks. Then you have the powerhouse teams who work everyday still, creating a large gap in skill and ability. Also for those teams that are run by one or two mentors, those mentors would burn out a lot easier then a team with 10 mentors.

I tend to stretch myself thin during the build season with too many commitments already, and I really couldn't handle more then six weeks unless we at least tripled our mentor base on 2470 to 6 mentors, doubled the mentor base on 3081 to 15 mentors and had 2 more mentors for my FTC team.

[M.O'Reilly]

Originally Posted by Hjelstrom

I would say one main difference between FRC and VEX is that in VEX you can't just build one robot. The robot designs evolve as the season progresses. Good designs get copied rapidly and better designs have to be created in order to stay competitive. The entire robot typically gets re-designed a few times in a season. I believe FRC would become a season-long crunch as the best teams try to out-do each other by bringing new robots to each competition. Sure we all try to do that now but it is contained well by the rules.

I think that this applies to FRC right now. 30 lbs. of pre-fab. parts is a lot of robot. With district systems being rolled out, you may have 6 hours of open bag time 2-3 times a season, plus 30 lbs. of parts to fabricate 3-4 times per season. Is your team foolish for not taking advantage of these allowances? Let's just say the robot is never done until next year's game is announced.

Game data shows that alliance scores increase throughout the season. In addition to teams learning how to play the game, modifications are being made.

Anyone feel like doing an analysis of how alliance scores change through the season before and after the introduction of bag&tag and withholding allowance?

[rick.oliver]

I’ve been reflecting on the many posts which infer that we must choose between FIRST FRC excellence and having a life. I think that can be said about any endeavor. Think about it, those at the “top” of any field or profession are highly committed and focused. It may appear to some of us that they don’t have a life or that perhaps their priorities are misplaced or they have extraordinary capacity.

I think it is a reasonable inference to say that those of us posting on this thread are striving to be excellent. I do not want to sacrifice quality and competitiveness in my own program and I certainly do not want FIRST to implement rules which inhibit my ability or anybody else’s ability to be as great as they want to be.

I will respect another person’s choices when it comes to their level of commitment to their program and I neither need nor want FIRST or anybody else (outside of my wife) dictating my level of commitment to our program.

I want to see FIRST FRC continuing to grow in both number of teams participating and the quality and competitiveness of their robots. I believe that the mythical 6 week build season is as much a deterrent to both of those goals as anything else. More rules which are more constraining are certainly not going to help, in my opinion, ease the burden of mentors or students. More things like Ri3D would go a long way toward accomplishing the goal of increasing competitiveness. Those things may also help ease the burden of many mentors, too.

I'll say it one more time, the only stop build date should be the ship date to Championships.

[bduddy]

I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of teams out there that are extremely inspiring without putting their mentors through extreme burnout or forcing their students to give up other activities, etc. I believe that it is in the interests of FIRST to ensure that that remains the case. If that entails placing or keeping limits on those teams that do not limit themselves as much, that may be unfortunate for them but I think that at some point you have to look at everyone's interests. The NCAA has quite comprehensive limits on when and how teams can practice, and their goals are pretty similar...

[nicholsjj]

Something that hasn't been mentioned on this form yet that needs to be addressed is that NO isn't a bad word. I am very passionate about our robotics program through the school and area. Yet I still at times say no. I learned my lesson last year when helping out with a robotics conference in Jefferson City, MO. I did not have enough time and energy to help out but I said I would. It didn't help anyone as I was not able to accomplish what I said I could. This can be applied to an extended build season. If you haven't seen your family in three weeks then tell your students that there will not be a meeting from Thursday through Sunday. Without the pressure of getting your robot built in four to six weeks then you would be able to stop building for a 4 day break every week or two. Doing this will not only help you get a break from the burnout as a mentor, but it will also allow for your students to be able to get caught up on their schoolwork and family time. I would encourage mentors that are suffering from burnout to say "No were not meeting for a few days" and see the results for the team. I understand that it's hard to tell inspired students to put robotics on the back burner for a while, but with time your students will understand and respect your decision for it.

Tldr; No isn't a bad word and saying it during the build season can be very positive.

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

But, there are other "open season" robotics competition out there that are relatively comparable to FRC. Aren't both FTC and VEX, open season competitions? What happens in these types of competitions? Are the mentors burned out? Are they filling every hour of every day working on their machines? Are these even comparable to FRC mentors and robots?

From my experience of working with a FTC team & FRC team for the past two seasons, here are some facts about the teams:
1. The FTC Team met less frequently than the FRC team
2. As FTC is smaller, there was a significantly better attendance rate at the FTC meetings than at FRC meetings.
3. FTC in Illinois (and our team) starts competitions in Nov, so our team has a 6-8 week build season, generally 7 weeks with start-up time etc.
4. Between our Qualifier and the State Championship, activity for the FTC team is very heavy, as the kids get more interested and want to change more things.
5. For both FTC and FRC, activity picks up quite a bit towards the end of build season. We've only gotten better in FTC this year (our second year), and have put together a timeline (which wasn't followed) in FRC.

My observations/conclusions:
- Because of 3, and also because it's the same group of kids on FTC and FRC. I would say it's possible to do a comparison. It is altogether two different competitions which does change things but still.
- An explanation to number 5, I believe that going through the stringent deadline has forced us to try and get more organized and slap together timelines. It requires our students to be more diligent and focused. Without such a strict deadline, I already envision the "You guys should get this done" "But we have so much time". Resulting to things being postponed and extending the commitment of mentors AND students.
- As 4 shows, since we didn't bag our robot for FTC we continued to make improvements and continue to work on the robot. The students we work with are super interested, if we don't give them a "no, we're done" then they'll push to continue working on it.
- With 4, our FTC team could have done a lot of outreach, fundraising etc events, but it's hard to pull the students away from the robot and have them focus on those things that are actually important to the sustainability of our team. Our FRC team is different, as after the stop deadline, we still have quite a few meetings, but switch to a focus on outreach, and competition ready items, which also typically brings in a couple of new mentors. We simply use their motivation and re-task them, and year after year they better understand the need for all this not robot related stuff we do.


In my opinion, having a deadline helps to not kill our mentors AND students (everyone needs to see families and sleep). It allows our team to focus on other fundamental aspects of our team. The deadline also creates a hard deadline, and as is we have trouble with organization, with our artificial deadlines. I believe that deadline makes them realize that our team will become way more efficient if we plan and think things through ahead of time (ie. Design week, Build week, meeting schedules).

While expanding the season, may allow teams to build better robots, are better robots more important than important skills such as time management, proper communication and organization that students NOT mentors are inspired to pursue after seeing the success of better teams?

[Irwin772]

Originally Posted by dcarr

FYI - Canadians aren't the only ones having to deal with exams during the build season. Our school, and perhaps many others, have finals in week 2 which is pretty damaging to the schedule, basically knocks out a full week for many of the students.

This further proves the point that a lack of time doesn't affect many teams, California has consistently put out many great robots even with the loss of time.