The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

[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.