The negative effects of FRC

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Mike Schreiber

1678 who I'm hoping Mike Corsetto will elaborate on because I'd be interested in hearing it.

1678 meets four days a week during Build/Comp season. Wed/Thurs 6:30pm-9pm, Sat/Sun 9am-5pm. Additionally, we meet 9am-5pm on Mondays that the school has off (ends up being 2-3 days during this time period).

To set the stage, I am our only mechanical design mentor and I don't CAD parts, just review student work. We "get away" with limited design resources and limited meeting schedule by making purposeful compromises, planning well, and communicating outside of meeting times.

More on our design compromises here and here.

Some of our design review's happen in person, but many happen on my iPhone via the GrabCAD app at around 4am (when I wake up). I take some screenshots, highlight some things, and send feedback to student designers for them to work on during their own time.

We can't always hit the four meeting per week goal. Our robot design this season placed an enormous burden on our Robot Programming Team. They met closer to 6 days/week most of the competition season, knocking out bugs and iterating 2-ball auto. We are hoping that many of the lessons learned this season will result in established technical and communication improvements that lessen the burden on our Robot Programmers next season.

We had two or three very late nights for programming that ended up not being as productive as they were harmful to our productivity on subsequent days. We will be avoiding late nights next year.

I love the responsibility/stress of FRC. A quote from a mentor of mine:

"The seed of potential is cracked by the weight of responsibility."

The higher the stakes, the higher the payoff. That's the magic of FRC.

-Mike