The negative effects of FRC

[Jon Stratis]

The stress thing is something students deal with all the time, and it's not just robotics related. Back in the day, my school didn't have a FIRST team, otherwise I would have been on it (they do now though!). Instead, I spent a lot of my time in band. Marching band met for a couple of hours every day after school in the fall, much like my team meets a couple of hours a day during the winter. Jazz band happened for an hour before school started. To say there were days where I was easily one of the last students in the school and the first one there the next morning would not be an exaggeration. Sure, getting all my homework done around that was taxing and a little stressful... but it taught be important time management skills that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

Frankly, if someone is burning out from being a leader, it's most often because they don't know how to delegate, how to get something moving then step back and let others carry it on. There's nothing wrong with a student leader showing up, getting the meeting going and everyone on task, then moving to the back of the room to do homework. Unfortunately, what often happens is that student leaders feel the need to do everything themselves, be an active part of everything from the moment it starts until the moment it ends, and they end up getting burned out. The hard part is learning how to delegate, how to grow talent to compliment your own so you can step back a little bit and take care of yourself.

The event schedules are not really overly demanding. Thursday pits open at 8:30, close at 8. Friday open at 8, close at 7. Saturday open at 8, close at 6:30. As a key volunteer, I show up an hour before pits open every day, and I don't leave until after all of the teams have - so I'm easily staying in the building longer. Then after ensuring everyone is gone, I get to catch up with my team or meet up with some other volunteers for dinner (or just to hang if dinner was provided at the event that day). Despite all of that, I still get 6-8 hours of sleep every night during an event. Any lack of sleep is self-inflicted, or inflicted by the team, not by the event schedule.

Finding time for lunch is another tough area. You need to be able to delegate, to plan ahead, and if needed shift your schedule a little. Why do you need to be in the pit working on every little thing? Isn't there someone else that can do some work while you get some food? As an LRI, I know a lot of work happens over the lunch hour at most events, and I find it hard to leave the pits knowing that teams may need my help or advise. But I make it work. I ensure there's proper coverage at inspection (a trusted experienced inspector and my inspection manager) and I go eat. I also make sure all of my inspectors make it to lunch on time - I know some people that have a tendency to work through lunch, like a certain CSA that also mentors my team... I don't let that happen to my inspectors.

Einstein is tough... but really, I don't see what prevents you from sending one person out to grab a couple pizzas for your drive/pit team while everyone else moves everything, then you can all grab a couple of slices during down time - trust me, I watched Einstein and saw plenty of teams sitting there bored while we were all waiting for the next match to happen - plenty of time to eat!

In the end, when you're at competition it's hard to fit more than a half dozen people actively working inside the pit at a time. Most teams have more people than that, and any lack of time to attend to things like eating just means the team isn't doing a proper job in cross training and delegating. Ultimately, it's a leadership fail to allow yourself or those you oversee to go without eating.