How many hours does your team work during the build season? Pol

[DampRobot]

I feel like we work "a lot" as a team (although not as much as some teams represented on CD). Our typical workweek is:

3-6 Monday-Friday
9-6 Saturday-Sunday

Which gives us a total of about 33 hours per week. We scale it back after bag to only a few days a week while making the weekend days about 10-5.

However, the four days before bag we worked:

Thursday: 8-8
Friday: 8-11 PM
Saturday: 8-1 AM
Sunday: 8 till 6 PM Monday.

That was a harrowing experience.

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by smclean1969

One thing I'd caution folks about too is losing all perspective on this. Don't let a robot competition become a higher priority than your grades. It doesn't do the students any good to win tournaments and not get into solid college programs. It doesn't do our sponsors any good if we're not producing future technical leaders at the expense of winning a tournament.

I would agree 100%. Every year my grades slipped in the spring because of FIRST, and although I was accepted into the university I wanted, I do wish I hadn't let that happen

[Qbot2640]

Typically week days are 7 - 10, allowing our mentors to get home and have some family time before greeting the build team. In the past we've taken one evening (Friday) off. Saturday and Sunday can be longer days as necessary - 11 - 5 or so.

The main thing we have seen to make a busy build season actually work, is to have different sub-teams working on different nights. Then, all team members have time for school work and other demands, mentors have time to grocery shop and do laundry, and the robot still gets built.

[Clem1640]

We formally schedule 30 hours/week of meeting time for the team during build season. This tends to expand towards the end of the season.

Most students do not attend every meeting (school work comes first), but some people (such as CAD designers, programmers and media folks) put in a significant number of off-meeting hours.