The 6 Week Build Season and 'Mentor Burnout'

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

In the fall and in the spring, I am a professor at the local community college two nights a week. This conveniently falls just before and just after the FIRST build season (by a matter of a couple days). Post-bag (like the day after) and before and during competition season, I'm teaching in a second job two nights a week. I already turned down teaching another class at both the high school and at the college, because I want the time for FIRST.

Is it possible that the 6 week build season is costing you money right now? If the college teaching job is 2 nights a week, then wouldn't going to an unregulated build season allow you more time during the week so you can teach those 2 nights instead of working on FIRST? That is why I'm arguring for extending the build season, so teams can go from meeting 6 days a week to a more managable 3 or 4 days per week.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Chris Hibner

Is it possible that the 6 week build season is costing you money right now? If the college teaching job is 2 nights a week, then wouldn't going to an unregulated build season allow you more time during the week so you can teach those 2 nights instead of working on FIRST? That is why I'm arguring for extending the build season, so teams can go from meeting 6 days a week to a more managable 3 or 4 days per week.

As a person who also teaches community college night classes (and is president of our local beekeeping association, and is on my local school board), I'm not sure how I can say NO NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO without people understanding it.

I am one of the busiest human beings I know. The moment build season ends, I'm doing other things with my nights. Community colleges will not adjust their semester schedule to accommodate additional weeks of FIRST. The school board will not reschedule meetings. The bee club will still meet the second Monday of every month; the officers the first.

Reducing FIRST to "only" 3-4 days a week, but extending the number of weeks, will create MORE conflicts which will cause MORE exhaustion and MORE burnout, not less. It will render us unable to put in the concentrated time necessary to do the other things we want to do well.

...And that's not even considering the "keeping up with the Joneses" work ethic that many of us middle-tier FIRST teams have--we want to become elite teams, and as I said before, I have a very hard time betting against the work ethic of the likes of Wildstang, Simbotics, Miss Daisy, and other such top-tier teams. I assume that most of them will not moderate their work schedule, but will instead squeeze every minute out that they can--and those that don't will probably stop being top-tier teams in a matter of years.

Burnout became a problem when FIRST added the withholding allowance. "To address problem A, we added X. It caused problem B. So let's not remove X and figure out better ways to address A, let's tinker with Z instead." Um, what?

[Jared Russell]

I travel for work. Often.

For the past five years I have been fortunate in that I've been able to avoid lengthy business travel during build season. As it is looking right now, I will be out of town for 3-4 weeks in January/February of 2014.

We have had a number of similar issues with mentors (and key students) over the years. Travel that falls during a build season. Hectic situations at work requiring lots of overtime. Illnesses and deaths in the family that require undivided attention. Weather calamities. School strikes. Emergency situations at sponsors that delay making key parts. Critical components on back order.

When you only have 6 weeks of full robot access, losing a week or more because of any of these unfortunate, but very common, real-life situations is disastrous.

If you have unlimited robot access, you can lessen the hit or re-plan around your constraints. You can also continue to utilize the "6 week grind" model, if that is what works for you and your team. Nobody is taking that away from you! And I wouldn't worry about the "arms race" escalating too much to the point that a 6 week robot can't be competitive. Even here, on a forum that over-represents the top tier of FRC teams, I don't see mentors for former World Champions salivating over the thought of being able to pour even more time into their robot than they do currently. In the case of Miss Daisy, we are at our limit as it is.

Arguments that basically amount to, "I can't/don't want to balance my life if build season is longer than six weeks, therefore nobody should be allowed to" just do not make sense to me.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

As a person who also teaches community college night classes (and is president of our local beekeeping association, and is on my local school board), I'm not sure how I can say NO NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO without people understanding it.

I am one of the busiest human beings I know. The moment build season ends, I'm doing other things with my nights. Community colleges will not adjust their semester schedule to accommodate additional weeks of FIRST. The school board will not reschedule meetings. The bee club will still meet the second Monday of every month; the officers the first.

Reducing FIRST to "only" 3-4 days a week, but extending the number of weeks, will create MORE conflicts which will cause MORE exhaustion and MORE burnout, not less. It will render us unable to put in the concentrated time necessary to do the other things we want to do well.

...And that's not even considering the "keeping up with the Joneses" work ethic that many of us middle-tier FIRST teams have--we want to become elite teams, and as I said before, I have a very hard time betting against the work ethic of the likes of Wildstang, Simbotics, Miss Daisy, and other such top-tier teams. I assume that most of them will not moderate their work schedule, but will instead squeeze every minute out that they can--and those that don't will probably stop being top-tier teams in a matter of years.

Burnout became a problem when FIRST added the withholding allowance. "To address problem A, we added X. It caused problem B. So let's not remove X and figure out better ways to address A, let's tinker with Z instead." Um, what?

Agreed here ... wholeheartedly.
If I ever step back into FRC it needs to somehow fit with my job/travel schedule, other robotics programs we run for younger kids, baseball coaching I do, and generally being able to support/be there for other activities that I'm not running or helping to run, but my kids participate in which currently include: hockey/skating classes, band, church youth, school talent shows and plays, on and on. This all is not to mention other "tugs" I get from folks who'd like me to be on the board of their organizations, run for school board, etc - All worthwhile causes.

I suppose there are two lenses to look through on this issue:
1. Looking at FRC as "the" place I volunteer my time
2. Looking at FRC as "one of the many places" I volunteer my time

It also matters how wide a team's mentor base is.
...and, if you set mentor burnout aside for a second - impact on the students. Eat up more of the year where a student is "obligated" in some way to the team, that's one more chunk of time they can't pursue other interests. Gotta be a balance somewhere and some teams do this better than others.

For me, if I were a single young professional without kids of my own and without other activities I'm passionate about and involved in, I think I'd be more supportive of a position like my friend Mr. Hibner puts forth.

With the place I'm at in my life now, however, an extended "build" in FRC is something that I'm really not in favor of.

[Taylor]

What Sanddrag and Patrick said.

One thing I've noticed about this thread - and this is a generalization - is most folks who are against extending the build season are on teams with <6 mentors, and most folks who are for extending the build season are on teams with >6 mentors.
We are spread exceedingly thin as it is. We don't just meet 6 days a week during build season - we also meet at least once a week the rest of the year (summer excluded) for training, outreach, other STEM initiatives, etc. While some mentors lay dormant for 46 weeks of the year, descending on their teams for those six weeks of build, we don't have that luxury. We are here, all the time, and we're barely getting by as it is.
Also, the 6-week aspect is a challenge I happen to very much enjoy. With the urgency created there, the team is able to truly learn prioritizing, scheduling, making tough decisions quickly but intelligently - all the real lessons learned in an abbreviated build schedule.

[mathking]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

Agreed here ... wholeheartedly.
If I ever step back into FRC it needs to somehow fit with my job/travel schedule, other robotics programs we run for younger kids, baseball coaching I do, and generally being able to support/be there for other activities that I'm not running or helping to run, but my kids participate in which currently include: hockey/skating classes, band, church youth, school talent shows and plays, on and on. This all is not to mention other "tugs" I get from folks who'd like me to be on the board of their organizations, run for school board, etc - All worthwhile causes.

I suppose there are two lenses to look through on this issue:
1. Looking at FRC as "the" place I volunteer my time
2. Looking at FRC as "one of the many places" I volunteer my time

For me, If I were a single young professional without kids of my own and without other activities I'm passionate about and involved in, I think I'd be more supportive of a position like my friend Mr. Hibner puts forth.

With the place I'm at in my life now, however, an extended "build" in FRC is something that I'm really not in favor of.

I agree with you completely Rich. And I think that your point has implications for the stability of FRC as well. I can get away with spending as much time as I do at FRC (and not with my family or doing other things) largely because so much of that time is concentrated in January and February. If the build season were extended, I would have to be less involved. I am sure my co-leader would have to be less involved as well. But we are the two more or less "permanent fixtures" on the team, and this would have implications for our teams stability long term.

I know that 1712 has some excellent young professionals as mentors, as does 1014. But it takes a while for young mentors to be ready to lead a team and to be accepted by the students and other mentors as a team leader. And I think that in an extended build season you run even more risk than you currently have of mentors having to step away when they start to have families and more responsibilities, precisely at the time when they become the most capable as leaders.

I also think that extending the build season runs a real risk of scaring off teachers. For now at least, most FRC teams are based in our at least around schools. And starting a team often requires having someone at the school willing to take on a very daunting task. One way I have been able to sell the idea of starting an FRC team to teachers is by saying "It is a lot of work, but the majority of it is concentrated in the six weeks of the build season."

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Jared341

Arguments that basically amount to, "I can't/don't want to balance my life if build season is longer than six weeks, therefore nobody should be allowed to" just do not make sense to me.

What are your thoughts on FIRST and parity?

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Taylor

One thing I've noticed about this thread - and this is a generalization - is most folks who are against extending the build season are on teams with <6 mentors, and most folks who are for extending the build season are on teams with >6 mentors.

This is an interesting finding since I would think that teams with more mentors would favor the 6 week schedule since with their human resource advantage they are more likely to build a more competitive robot in less time.

BTW, I woudn't put team 51 in the > 6 mentor category.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Jared341

<snip>
When you only have 6 weeks of full robot access, losing a week or more because of any of these unfortunate, but very common, real-life situations is disastrous. <snip>

Jared,
There are very few people in FIRST I respect more than you, but I couldn't disagree more. I'm sure there are lots of other folks I really respect in FIRST who I disagree with on this issue as well.

I thought, at least at one time, that the situations you describe above were exactly WHY FIRST - more specifically FRC - existed to begin with. Don't people learn a LOT about themselves in these situations even if/when the robot doesn't win?

All,
Focusing on winning robots and focusing on the development of young leaders is NOT the same thing.

You know, there are teams out there that only meet 2-3 times a week with the six week build season. Some of them are turning out INCREDIBLE alumni in spite of "not keeping up with the Robot Jonses."

What's our goal?

namaste, all.

[mathking]

Arguments that basically amount to, "I can't/don't want to balance my life if build season is longer than six weeks, therefore nobody should be allowed to" just do not make sense to me.

Originally Posted by pfreivald

What are your thoughts on FIRST and parity?

Good point pfreivald, but I think it goes beyond questions of equity or parity. If enough mentors can't or don't want to balance their lives with a big increased time commitment then you will have more teams dropping out of FIRST.

As it happens, I have a lot of experience addressing this question in another context: sports. Ask any of the people here in CD who have experience as youth or high school coaches over the past decade or two and you are likely to find a lot of people dealing with the effects of ever-expanding seasons. "Volunmandatory" off season conditioning and practices, club seasons and seemingly endless numbers of tournaments lead to kids spending ever more time on a team. Which leads to a lot of student burnout as well.

[Gdeaver]

286 Posts and still going. I've held back posting till now. Burnout is something we individually and the teams collectively do to our selves. We make the CHOICE to over burden ourselves and the team. First only provides the medium for us to do it. The First program tends to draw hard charging driven mentors. They tend to be highly intelligent self motivated successful people. They are the people that solve the problems for their company and society. The problem is many of us could be labeled as obsessive and compulsive. We have to beat the game and will drive our selves crazy in the quest. We also get real foul if the game beats us. Hundreds of negative posts on several topics since the competition end. We also hate limits. We revile at rules and artificial restrictions. We want to beat the game any way we can. When I first started mentoring team 104, We could use what came in some crates, a few additional raw materials and anything in a catalog from a company called Small Parts. A very limited and restrictive activity. Ever year since then teams collectively have been screaming at First to open up the program. First listened and has more or less made this competition wide opened. It has turned into a monster of a design build compete activity. First gave us what we the the consumer wanted and demanded. Now that we have gotten what we wanted we are up set that it is driving us crazy. It was the collective choice of the First community that lead to the current state. In stead of pulling back and making the First competition more restrictive and limited. Not such a resource hog. We are demanding First remove the last major restriction - Build time. This could destroy the program. We do not have discipline. We can not limit our time investment. Make this thing wide opened time wise and we will destroy our selves. We can not discipline our selves. Others have to do it for us.

Please do not remove the build time restriction. I do not want to have a personal meltdown next year. First corporate please listen to me. Save me from myself.

Just my opinion.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

Burnout became a problem when FIRST added the withholding allowance.

Sorry to keep posting, but I disagree with this. Burnout has existed since I've been doing FIRST.

For me, the burnout level greatly increased starting in 2003 with the introduction of autonomous mode. That added 1 - 3 weeks of development and testing work (depending on the game) but the build season stayed at 6.5 weeks.

[sanddrag]

Here's another element. Some teams are fortunate to have their student membership comprised primarily of students who do FIRST Robotics as their only extracurricular activity outside of class. Our students are not this way, and it often is a problem. Many different commitments are competing for their time. They are playing sports, running track, racing mountain bikes, debating in mock trials, playing musical instruments, completing senior projects, writing newspapers, publishing yearbooks, and taking as many as 5 AP classes.

The issue is simple. When the build season is extended, those of us who do more than just FIRST robotics cannot compete with those who have nothing else going on. We all can sideline our normal responsibilities for a few weeks and play catchup later, but there's no way we can sustain that for months.

It's silly to think we would pace ourselves, because I know there are teams that aren't. This is a competition. If you're not in it to give the absolute best effort you can, why even bother? If the rules let you work 7 days a week for 10 weeks, I'll be working 7 days a week for 10 weeks, and it will be everything else that suffers as a result, not the FRC team.

I don't want to see the day where winning in FIRST means losing at everything else.

[nuggetsyl]

Question if we had an open build and your team does not want to work more then 6 weeks then why do it? Just set your team up to only work 6 weeks. Making the season longer will massively reduce costs, which is what's needed to grow FIRST.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Also, the 6-week aspect is a challenge I happen to very much enjoy. With the urgency created there, the team is able to truly learn prioritizing, scheduling, making tough decisions quickly but intelligently - all the real lessons learned in an abbreviated build schedule.

And I'm sure FIRST views it similarly. 6 weeks is part of the challenge! I know in reality most of us build practice robots and utilize the 30 lbs withholding to the max amount possible (our team especially this season) but there won't be a perfect scenario that works for everyone.

If build season is extended I know for most of us the following will shake out. The first 2-3 weeks we will probably meeting 3-4 days a week increasing to 4-5 during week 4. Then weeks 5-6 will be back to the crazy end of build schedule we all do (if I mentioned some of our team's schedule during these weeks I doubt most people would believe the time we put in the final weeks. I don't know how we stayed alive). Now the robot is done and its off to week 1 events. Robot comes back good but never good enough (if you are lucky) but for most of us the robot isn't what we want. Now commence another 2-3 weeks of craziness to prepare for the next event.

While this topic has remained mostly on mentors the students need to be address too in this thread. Extending the build season has implications on their lives as well. For us, right after our Week 1 is when spring sports begin tryouts of which we saw a large drop in attendance along with other activities and work starting in the spring. For our team I don't see our team really functioning past our first regional aside from the driveteam and a few programmers meeting to debug the robot. Most of us just can't give that much extended time up. For us that stems from the fact that we are a school based team. Meetings begin at 2pm when school gets out and finishes around 5:30pm. This is the standard meeting time mainly used outside of build season. Typically during build season we meeting Mon Tues Fri 2-8, Wed Thurs 2-5:30, and Sat 9-6. Occasionally we meet Sundays during the crunch time weeks 11-4. These were not the hours our team met during the last two weeks of build season. Those hours would have allowed us to keep most of our sanity!

If the build season were to be extended I know my involvement would drop as the season drew longer. Yes the main build season would be more manageable with school and work (this past season I worked two jobs 6 days a week), however in order to make meetings I and other adult mentors/engineers on our team have to work out special schedules to make our teams 2pm meeting. I have an easier time working this out than others who work until 6pm which is why most of our meeting go until 8pm so we can have more adults involved teaching and working with students. We also can't start meeting later and do what most teams do: 6-9:30/10 because that would instantly burn out our head coach who teaches at the school and needs to be present in order for our team to meet.

For me the burnout comes in weeks 5 and 6 when we realize exactly where we are and how ineffective we were in weeks 2-3. Do I wish we had more time? Somewhat. But more importantly I regret how we operated and continue tweaking the machine for next season.