What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Teams with the resources and dedication to build practice bots don't tend to be the ones that fold. Chipping in your $0.02 about practice bots probably doesn't mean much in this thread. With regards to mentor burnout and bag day, there are two competing schools of thought on that issue, and it likely wouldn't impact all individuals the same way. Let's save the bag day talk for the threads about bag day.

I still think that bag day is really relevant to team retention, but the reason why has little to do with practice bots. Many/most teams need the handicap of being able to change their robot after experiencing the game for the first time in order to have a rewarding season on the field. Rewarding experiences help "pay for" the difficulty of running and sustaining an FRC team.

Sustaining an FRC team is really hard! It requires raising money; gathering interest and support from students, parents, administrators, and sponsors; managing a project involving a large group of students of varying abilities, interest levels, motivations, and distractions; managing a group of volunteer mentors with different abilities, interest levels, motivations, and distractions; running a 6 week engineering design crash course; and orchestrating all of the logistics necessary to sustain a team through a build and competition season. I have never been on a team where any of these tasks were easy and without lots of frustration and many headaches. You'd have to be crazy to do this year after year without some sort of rewarding experience.

There are many types of rewarding experiences in FRC, but many of them are predicated on achieving some sort of basic engineering success. Not necessarily winning, but "the robot I toiled and built to accomplish some function has actually succeeded in doing so!", at least.

I can't say that all of the teams that fold would not have folded if only they had an open bag and could improve their robot...but I strongly suspect that some could have.

I do know that once you've experienced a handful of rewarding FRC moments, leaving the program becomes really difficult, even when life is calling.

[gblake]

If anything, simplifying the build goals, the build expenses, and the time spent attempting to carry them out is what a struggling team needs; not a double dose of each.

The first FRC seasons are big meals to eat in one gulp if you are a young/rookie team that didn't first cut your teeth on an simpler challenge.

Simplify and constrain, instead of pushing in the direction of increased complexity (veterans will use time to create complexity and consistency - rookies will have even more problems than they do now if they want to keep up - time won't solve those problems).

I know there is a strong community that wants to push FRC as far as possible in the Formula One direction (and use more build time to do it), but if rookies and veterans are on the same field, that's not the way to avoid overloading, overworking, and overwhelming the rookies.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by gblake

(veterans will use time to create complexity and consistency - rookies will have even more problems than they do now if they want to keep up - time won't solve those problems).

...

...but if rookies and veterans are on the same field...

The argument isn't that removing bag time will level the playing field, or reduce the disparity between rookie and veteran teams.

The argument is that, with the current system, too many rookie teams build robots that simply don't function or accomplish any basic gameplay related task. These teams then get discouraged because they couldn't build a robot that positively contributed to the any of the alliances they were a part of, and decide that the time and effort they put into this program wasn't worth the disappointment at the end. Theoretically, moving to an open build schedule would give these rookie teams more time to reach this bar of performance, where they would have the rewarding experience that Jared's post talks about.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Knufire

The argument isn't that removing bag tie will level the playing field, or reduce the disparity between rookie and veteran teams.

The argument is that, with the current system, too many rookie teams build robots that simply don't function or accomplish any basic gameplay related task. These teams then get discouraged because they couldn't build a robot that positively contributed to the any of the alliances they were a part of, and decide that the time and effort they put into this program wasn't worth the disappointment at the end. Theoretically, moving to an open build schedule would give these rookie teams more time to reach this bar of performance, where they would have the rewarding experience that Jared's post talks about.

I don't think lack of motivation or inspiration is why we see high 2nd/3rd year attrition rates.

I think we see them because running an FRC team takes an inordinate amount of resources, both human and financial, and most teams that start really don't have any plan for acquiring those resources in a sustainable fashion. You can get by for a year or two with a couple of people overworking themselves to keep things afloat, but eventually people burn out and you're left without any real way to run the team. That timescale coincides neatly with teams no longer being eligible for the 1st-year/2nd-year NASA grants, too, so for a team that wasn't sustainably built the funding dries up at about the same time that the people holding the team together tend to burn out.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I don't think lack of motivation or inspiration is why we see high 2nd/3rd year attrition rates.

I agree with you. I didn't mean to imply that lack of inspiration or motivation were directly responsible, but that the discouragement of building a non-functional robot is a contributing factor to those key people involved in running a team "burning out".

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Knufire

I agree with you. I didn't mean to imply that lack of inspiration or motivation were directly responsible, but that the discouragement of building a non-functional robot is a contributing factor to those key people involved in running a team "burning out".

Perhaps, but maybe not as much as you'd think.

A perhaps representative anecdote, from my own experience: Team 4464 very nearly folded in their third year (perhaps, in all truth, it should have). We attended championships in both of our first two years, but it was on the back of an overworked mentor base that shrunk each year. There was no plan for replacing human resources as they left. After the second year, our lead nontechnical mentor (the mother of the team captain) departed, as her son had graduated and quite honestly she had been handling a quantity of work that ought to have been done by at least three people. The resulting third season was, simply put, a mess. Had one or two more people decided to move on, it probably would not have happened at all. And this was a team that won RAS - a team that, from the outside, one would think was having a great deal of success. I think it's important to keep this in mind, when thinking about young teams: success can happen on the very brink of failure, often at the expense of abusing an insufficient pool of resources in ways that will eventually come back to bite you. On top of this, of course, were problems with funding (I loaned the team somewhere north of $2000 out-of-pocket to keep it afloat until we finally had funding come in, and I was not the only one) and issues with creating a sustainable base of student knowledge (which is a thing that's much easier to keep going once started than it is to get up and running). I think this is the type of situation one should have in mind when they consider the attrition rates.

I think it's hard to communicate to people who are considering starting an FRC team just how hard it is to run a team. Even 449, which is a fairly well-established team, scrambles to find year-to-year funding. FRC is difficult, expensive, and has a massive barrier to entry; and most of the difficulty is not in putting a robot together and getting it to competition for the first year - most of the difficulty is not even seen until the student base starts to churn and mentors start to leave. I honestly do not know how FRC can prepare teams for that.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Knufire

The argument isn't that removing bag time will level the playing field, or reduce the disparity between rookie and veteran teams.

The argument is that, with the current system, too many rookie teams build robots that simply don't function or accomplish any basic gameplay related task. These teams then get discouraged because they couldn't build a robot that positively contributed to the any of the alliances they were a part of, and decide that the time and effort they put into this program wasn't worth the disappointment at the end. Theoretically, moving to an open build schedule would give these rookie teams more time to reach this bar of performance, where they would have the rewarding experience that Jared's post talks about.

Also those of us already overworked with our own teams can find more time to help rookie teams along during the build season.

It would also provide a longer period in which a potential sponsor or mentor may be able to visit and actually see the team working which can be as compelling as seeing a competition for the first time.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Knufire

The argument isn't that removing bag time will level the playing field, or reduce the disparity between rookie and veteran teams.

The argument is that, with the current system, too many rookie teams build robots that simply don't function or accomplish any basic gameplay related task. These teams then get discouraged because they couldn't build a robot that positively contributed to the any of the alliances they were a part of, and decide that the time and effort they put into this program wasn't worth the disappointment at the end. Theoretically, moving to an open build schedule would give these rookie teams more time to reach this bar of performance, where they would have the rewarding experience that Jared's post talks about.

I understand the argument. I simply disagree with it. Struggling teams have plenty of time to build a modest, but useable robot already. That tells me more time isn't what they need. YMMV.

How can time be their biggest problem? A ready-for-inspection kit bot, basic software, and driver controls can easily be built in a weekend, *if* you know what you are doing.

Building the FRC equivalent of a Formula One car, or anything close to it, is not a job for any struggling team. However, the more time healthy teams are given for building, the more their robots become like Formula One cars. As those robots get more sophisticated, the challenge becomes even more difficult for the struggling or new teams who try to keep up.

If you want more teams to survive, make all the robots simpler, cheaper, and less time-consuming.

[Mark Sheridan]

To sort off peel of the longer build season discussion. I find it hard to help teams outside the build season but find hard to have time to help teams during the build season. There just so many learning opportunities during the build season, often too many. Outside of the build season, some team meet very little or have a tough time getting ready for the build season.

I did notice that in California, the formula for successful rookie teams appears to be starting teams with prior FRC experience. 3476 is an offshoot of 2493 and features mentors from 696, 980 and 3309. 5810 and 5805 have 3476 alumni and mentors leading those teams. Many successful teams in California are founded by mentors with more than 1 year of FRC experience. It seems to be a good formula for success and sustainability.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by gblake

*if* you know what you are doing..

Ahem...

Well that's where we come in right? Oh wait...

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

To sort off peel of the longer build season discussion. I find it hard to help teams outside the build season but find hard to have time to help teams during the build season. There just so many learning opportunities during the build season, often too many. Outside of the build season, some team meet very little or have a tough time getting ready for the build season.

This.

Also back to the point of curriculum, a longer build season would make it easier to apply the curriculum because you're not is as much of a rush to get things finished. You can put more energy in to training and teaching with the motivation that comes with the build season.

And if you aren't as concerned with those aspects you can put more energy in to raising funds and other resources during the season.

There are an infinite number of ways eliminating bag and tag could be used to help improve and sustain a team.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

I do know that once you've experienced a handful of rewarding FRC moments, leaving the program becomes really difficult, even when life is calling.

Great point!
All this talk about how hard it is to stay in FRC. Leaving it after experiencing personal and team successes is much harder!

[staplemonx]

here is some data that may be useful

Why teams are successful http://team1389.com/why-do-teams-succeed/

Why teams fold http://team1389.com/why-do-frc-teams-fold/

[DaveL]

My view of high school student behavior is that many students are motivated by deadlines.
We meet year round and only a hand full of students show up.
We get a big turnout on kickoff weekend and the last week of the build season.

On a side note, we only have a 5 week build season, because we take off the 3rd week to allow students to study for finals.
Do other teams have this constraint?

Dave
Mentor in the Pacific North West

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by DaveL

My view of high school student behavior is that many students are motivated by deadlines.
We meet year round and only a hand full of students show up.
We get a big turnout on kickoff weekend and the last week of the build season.

On a side note, we only have a 5 week build season, because we take off the 3rd week to allow students to study for finals.
Do other teams have this constraint?

Dave
Mentor in the Pacific North West

In my early years as a coach, I also did not schedule meetings during finals week. Later on, I was asked by the seniors to not dictate that. They said I should schedule the optional meetings and whoever wanted to come can come. Many seniors who applied early decisions or early actions already knew where they were going before build season starts. It was their last year on the team. This is another example that mentors/coaches should check with students before implementing rules thinking they were doing the right thing.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Ed Law

This is another example that mentors/coaches should check with students before implementing rules thinking they were doing the right thing.

While I agree with this and I think it will help most teams. Every team is different.

I want really badly to suggest that FIRST create a example "team handbook" to send out and help teams with but I honestly don't know if it will help or hurt the majority of rookie teams. I do feel that most teams would benefit from a handbook but that a lot of teams initially miss the point of them (writing down esoteric rules rather than trying to codify what their team is about). Not to mention that every team is different (Maybe a team is about esoteric rules?). I know plenty of teams that function without them but I am so VERY VERY happy that my team has one now and that my students want to continue to improve it. I think it aids in our long term sustainability.