The negative effects of FRC

[jijiglobe]

I would like to preface this post by making it abundantly clear that the FRC program has a net positive impact on the lives of its participants, as well as the community as a whole. I do, however, believe that this topic doesn't get talked about enough, and merits more discussion.


2016 was my last year in the FRC program, and I've been thinking a lot about the huge impact that it has had on my life. While it has had a huge positive impact on my life, I also think that there are many places in which the experience could be improved. This post might come off as rambling because I have a lot of thoughts on the topic.

This year I was the President of Engineering for team 694, which came with a massive amount of responsibility. Our team's places a huge priority on student work, trying to avoid the pitfalls of mentor help. Of course we have mentors, and we need them to help ensure the success of the team, but we do our best to keep them to a purely educational role, only putting their hands on the robot to assist a student, or to demonstrate a technique. The upsides to this system are obvious: students get to learn more, and get a more hands-on experience throughout the build process. The downsides are that this system places a huge burden on the students, particularly the leaders. To give an example of the amount of work that students on this team do, our CAD team does the entire robot CAD during a CAD marathon the second weekend after kickoff. This year CAD marathon lasted 36 hours with a 2 hour break after hour 20.

My experience as president was hugely stressful, and left me in a position where I had to stop and ask myself if it was all worth it. I have to admit that this year, during build season, I wasn't really in a good place emotionally; there were just too many things to worry about, on top of my classwork. On top of all that, my team made it to Einstein this year, which left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I'm happy that my team was successful, and that my hard work payed off. On the other hand, I'm worried about the implications of this success. Is it necessary for our leaders to push themselves this hard for our team to be successful?

I'm not the only one that has had negative experiences with FRC either. I have met many students (from my own team, as well as others) that let their grades suffer for their team. In fact, a friend of mine was unable to get into a college, despite being a Deans List winner at worlds. Of course it's not FIRST's fault that these types of situations arise, however I think it is important that they are talked about, and that FIRST does their best to address these problems.

Finally I would like to talk about competitions. Competitions provide an environment that implicitly encourages unhealthy behavior. Competitions start early, and end late. If you account for a healthy breakfast and dinner, this means that students often get 4-6 hours of sleep on competition nights, when they have to go work themselves to the point of exhaustion. Furthermore, at competitions, I have found it hard to allocate time to eat lunch. Lunch breaks (especially on the day of eliminations) tend to be exceedingly short, and that time is often necessary to systems-check the robot, and make repairs. Taking a lunch break, puts you at a competitive disadvantage, and don't even get me started on Einstein. If your team makes it to Einstein, you don't get a lunch break; You need to haul yourself and your pit over to Einstein field to get ready for opening ceremonies. I'm reluctant to say it, but I think FIRST should close pits during lunch, for the sake of ensuring that students eat.

Also... Airplanes aside, some people were throwing legitimately dangerous things onto Einstein (someone threw a large paper shuriken made out of several sheets of paper that narrowly missed someone in our pit crew. From the height it was thrown, it could have easily hurt someone really badly). Can FIRST please do something about the paper airplane situation?

tl;dr:

FIRST places a huge burden on students that can sometimes have negative effects on grades and health. Lunch breaks encourage students to skip meals, and airplanes on Einstein are dangerous