The negative effects of FRC

[Alan Anderson]

Almost everything about the original post strikes me as either something that can be handled by the individual, or is part of the specific team culture. I believe it can all be addressed without any changes imposed from outside. None of it (aside from the paper airplanes) seems under control of FIRST itself.

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

The lunch break thing has really started to irk me particularly when events run late and decide to eliminate a lunch break all together. This should not be the case. If an event runs late have everyone go on later but do not make students not eat.

You don't have to go without food just because the field doesn't shut down for a lunch break. It's common (though not yet customary) for teams to arrange for food to be brought to the pit crew so they don't have to leave the venue.

Eliminations this year at the NYC regional was particularly bad for me. We were not the top 30 teams so they would not let us get reinspected before alliance selections. Instead after we were chosen we had to remove our bumpers (we had reversible bumpers that did not like being removed), get reweighed, and spent 15 minutes with an inspector trying to explain our pneumatics system... We then had to start prepping for elims get our robot fixed up a bit and before we knew it we had to queue.

You were not allowed to be reinspected? That's just wrong. I think you should contact the LRI for that event with your concerns. This is not how re-inspection has been done at any event I have been part of. All teams are pushed to get their robots reinspected after their last match, and the usual procedure is to have them show up at the scale with "bumpers on, battery out."

Food isnt allowed in the pits or queue so I had to go without eating.

I'm sorry you didn't find time to eat, but you already figured out how to make it more of a priority. I also think that keeping the students from running out of fuel should be one of the mentors' responsibilities.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

You were not allowed to be reinspected? That's just wrong. I think you should contact the LRI for that event with your concerns. This is not how re-inspection has been done at any event I have been part of. All teams are pushed to get their robots reinspected after their last match, and the usual procedure is to have them show up at the scale with "bumpers on, battery out."

I agree with Alan on this... Every event I've been to almost all of the teams have passed reinspection before alliance selection. That includes the 60-63 team events in MN, as well as 75-100 team divisions at champs!

The only time I've had teams remove their bumpers during reinspection is when there's an issue. I can do the math to add their bumper weight to the robot weight to know what the scale should be. If that doesn't line up, I can also do the math to subtract the bumper weight to figure out what the robot actually weighs (and I even use a spreadsheet to do all that math for me to make sure I don't make a mistake!). Occasionally the robot is a little overweight and we can't figure out why, in which case I encourage the team to remove their bumpers and try with just the robot, before they start making changes that could cause them problems. Often that fixes it - the team forgot to bring the bolts or pins to the scale when they weighed their bumpers, and that accounts for the extra half pound that put their apparent robot weight over 120.

[jweston]

One of the things our team has been working on is self-care. That means getting adequate sleep, food, and generally giving yourself a break when your stress starts to get too high. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

I don't think its entirely fair to blame individuals, especially students, when they have trouble with self-care under duress. This isn't something that's widely taught in US culture. If anything, we seem to wear it as a badge of honor of how much we can take. Even something as simple as trying to get a good night's sleep can be difficult on an overnight when your brain is buzzing from the day's excitement. It's even more difficult if you're away at a hotel. It may pay off in the long run to have the team learn and practice some self-calming and self-monitoring techniques.

Self-care is one of those places where it's important for mentors to step in. Sometimes this means keeping an eye on the tension level of an individual or the team. Other times it means having plans, including contingency plans, to ensure that all students eat and drink enough water. It's not easy. A little research and planning plus flexbility is key.

The only thing I can think FIRST could work a bit harder on is ensuring matches stay on schedule with some extra time padding, especially in the earliest event weeks. Maybe that means scheduling the first 2-3 week events with a couple extra hours in them. That will probably result in a decrease of the number of teams that can sign up for an event due to match scheduling. This isn't a bad thing if it means everyone makes it through without losing their minds, although it may pose some difficulties for ensuring teams can sign up for regionals or 2 districts events, depending on where they are.

It would also be a boon if the "no outside food" wasn't so prevelant. I know that some teams quite understandably blow this off. I also realize this rule is often imposed by the venue, not FIRST. But it does make it extremely difficult at times to respect the venue's wishes while trying to feed our team, particularly when the venue's food vendors close long before the end of a late-running day.

[marshall]

Is it necessary for our leaders to push themselves this hard for our team to be successful?

I think this is tangentially relevant so I'm going to post this link here to the "Turning the Tide" report/website that Harvard, MIT, and other colleges have worked on:

http://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/collegeadmissions

I do feel like FRC is stressful but I don't think students do themselves any favors by also participating in eleventeen other clubs and programs while simultaneously attempting to edit the yearbook, school newspaper, and help children in Africa... not that OP did that or that those things aren't good but the priority for students should be on long term sustainable impact their communities.

You will find in life that pushing boundaries is hard and you can't push at 125% all year long without sacrificing something... eventually life catches up. I suppose it is part of growing up that students get to learn that. For some the lesson comes easier than others.

[jijiglobe]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Almost everything about the original post strikes me as either something that can be handled by the individual, or is part of the specific team culture. I believe it can all be addressed without any changes imposed from outside. None of it (aside from the paper airplanes) seems under control of FIRST itself.

I would argue that it's both in the interest of FIRST and the ChiefDelphi community to encourage good practices and team culture. FIRST talks about safety culture all the time, knowing full well that team culture without outside influence is not enough to produce the optimal result. Why not do the same with health? Just an idea.

Originally Posted by dradel

As said earlier sometimes you have to push yourself to meet a deadline or whatever, but real world doesn't stop because your a little tired. Biggest difference is mom and dad won't be in your real world job to hold your hand, well that is unless your going to be one of those live in your parents house till your 35 people, but that is a entirely different rant.

Originally Posted by Mike Schreiber

Every sport is tough - so is life.

I agree that real life is tough, but I know someone who won the Dean's List award at Championships, but was unable to get into a single college. He's a smart person and was not under-qualified for these institutions, he just didn't allocate his time well. This is clearly a bad outcome for a student that FIRST has decided to give one of it's most cherished awards to. It's nice to think that teams and mentors will solve these issues by themselves, but that simply isn't the case. A simple thing like FIRST reminding students to pay attention to there academics could go a long way, I mean that's essentially what they do with safety.

I want to be abundantly clear that I am not asking FIRST to make FRC easier! FRC is a challenge, and it's the hardest fun I've ever had, but I am asking FIRST to healthy practices, as well as self-care.

[trezelle2]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Almost everything about the original post strikes me as either something that can be handled by the individual, or is part of the specific team culture.... I also think that keeping the students from running out of fuel should be one of the mentors' responsibilities.

I'd like to add also that this is a great opportunity for alumni of your team, depending on your team culture. Personally, I helped found my team as a senior ('14-'15 school year - Recycle Rush), and, due to our small team, was chosen as both Drive Coach & Team Captain. That put a lot of stress and pressure on me, and I too went without lunch one day, didn't sleep well, etc - not because of lack of support, but because as a rookie team we didn't know what we were getting into in a lot of ways.
This year, I attended college 3 hours away from my high school, but decided to long-distance mentor my team, and that I felt extremely passionate about making sure that students didn't get burned out & had realistic jobs. My main projects during the year were:

• Fall: Define the roles on the team and run them by the other mentors
• December: Present these roles to the team
• Kickoff: Right after Kickoff, I interviewed the students and conferred with mentors to assign roles
• Competition: Support the team leaders

To elaborate, our team was small and we all agreed to have mentors appoint team leads in different areas.
During competitions, as a new mentor, I told our lead mentor that I planned to work closely with the drive team, and that paid off. I walked with them to queue to keep nerves down, especially when our robot had problems. With our very small team, our Drive Coach was also one of our strongest members in the pit, and could have burned himself out; at one point, I pulled our pit mentors aside, and we basically banned the drive team from the pit for around 45 minutes so I could bring them to lunch and not let them rush through or go hungry. We also had to tell the team captain to leave the pit for a little while, because she hadn't let herself take a break either. We had to be more careful with rotating our pit crew, even with only 7 team members.

Parents were also great, arranging dinner plans one day when we mentors were nearly burned out as well, which was really helpful.


I think that in many ways, FIRST attracts perfectionists and those who are likely to develop such laser focus and determination bordering on stubbornness that they forego such things as food and sleep. **(This applies both to students & mentors) Once our team recognized that, we could start taking steps to prevent hunger, tiredness, and burnout.

TL;DR: A college or alum mentor is a great team-wrangler. Watch for perfectionists that may set themselves up for burnout.


**Note: I say this lovingly, and am in no way trying to place blame on the participants. It's something I've learned about myself from experience, and I notice it in members of my own team.