paper: Stop the Stop Build

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

After years of 7 day weeks and long nights, 254 finally switched to a time-boxed* evening and weekend schedule last season, and as far as I'm concerned there's no turning back. It gives students time to do homework, mentors days off to work and be with family, and everyone the precious sleep they need. When we made this switch, we realized how ~40% of the time we were spending at build while exhausted and frustrated was wasted, and that a more spread-out schedule allows everyone to catch their breath, parts to arrive, and work sessions to be more focused

We are inspired to do this after conversations with you guys and 1678. We were so burnt out by week 4. We started making a lot of mistakes in the final 2 weeks that really hurt our season. We made a prototype drivetrain in 2 days early in season but after getting burnt out it took us over 5 days to finish the competition drivetrain. Getting feedback from you guys during the season was really helpful to for us to see our schedule was not the best for our students. some students had a tough time keeping up with school.

After doing this for the past 4 years, Code Orange has done the "7 days a week." We are moving to 4 days a week too. We think this will help our students have more time to stay focused on school and keep the meetings more fun.

I noticed a lot of top teams are making this switch.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by jman4747

So it seems one disagreement we have lies with the question of whether or not meeting more often over a short period of time is more stressful than meeting less often over a longer period of time.

I would assume most people who want to keep the bag beleve the latter is more stressful?

There's a couple of disagreements, I think.
--More often over shorter time, or less often over longer time? (Assumes the same number of meetings, or very close.)
--More meetings over more time, or same meetings over same time? (Assumes that teams maintain current schedule and simply move crunch time later.)

I would suspect that the disconnect is this: Teams that want to keep the bag are likely to assume that the SECOND part is the key. Teams that want to ditch the bag are likely to assume the FIRST part is the key. Basically, number of meetings vs time available to have 'em.

Originally Posted by marshall

Kinda cherry picking with the quote but this will definitely create two different classifications for teams. I'm torn on the idea of different classes for teams within FRC... part of me thinks it could be a good thing but part of me also thinks it's going to create unforeseen problems worse than the championshplit.

Having two different classifications for teams is pretty much an automatic nonstarter. Bring the floor up, not the ceiling down. If you are going to have two different classifications, have completely separate competitions.

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by jman4747

So it seems one disagreement we have lies with the question of whether or not meeting more often over a short period of time is more stressful than meeting less often over a longer period of time.

I would assume most people who want to keep the bag beleve the latter is more stressful?

I've seen a lot more concerns around the following points.
- More time available will drive more time to meet increasing total commitment.
- Open build allows all teams to continue iterating. You will need to do the same to remain competitive.
- Open build will provide more opportunities for design convergence.

Either way you look at it, FRC is a huge time commitment. Change is never easy. Fear of the unknown is common.

I've reflected on this debate and how it would impact me. Commitment to this program is a personal decision. In my case, it would probably drive some extra meeting time to iterate. But oddly, I believe it would reduce my stress. I'd rather spend my time improving, repairing, and practicing with one robot than trying to maintain two.

David

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

The argument that every team should be like 254 is weak...

Where did I make this argument? I do not think this, and did not say this.

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Every team has already decided how they are going to schedule their meeting times.

Of course every team has a schedule, and has presumably put considerable thought into it...thought that all assumes a six-week open-access build season because that is the system we currently have. Changing this underlying assumption permits some (not all) teams to find new solutions and make new trade offs between what they put into and get out of the program.

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Hubris is blinding.

I expected neither "Have-you-tried-not-making-mentors-burn-out" nor "I-find-it's-preferable-not-to-burn-out-if-you-can-help-it" to be particularly novel ideas that this team had never thought of. Rather, I had hoped to foster a reply to understand why these might not be on the table, even with an extended build season. I want to better understand differing viewpoints on this and (in particular) what attitudes would be towards some sort of middle ground.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by D.Allred

I've seen a lot more concerns around the following points.
- More time available will drive more time to meet increasing total commitment.
- Open build allows all teams to continue iterating. You will need to do the same to remain competitive.
- Open build will provide more opportunities for design convergence.

And that's about what I was thinking but I tend to consider the above three to be non-issues in the grand scheme of things.

Edit: And good point at the end. I wonder how many more people in a similar situation would be saved the stress.

1 - More time available will drive more time to meet increasing total commitment.

This can be solved by simply committing to a set amount of involvement before the season and sticking to it, which a lot of us do already. It's a problem created or subverted by personal choice and that won't change without the bag.

2 - Open build allows all teams to continue iterating. You will need to do the same to remain competitive.

Great! More time for learning with the robot.

And if you don't want that...

You could decide that whatever level you can obtain by meeting on a bag&tag like schedule is good enough for you. I know that doesn't sound great but people often debate the overall importance of on field performance, and any given team can decide that for themselves. You can also back load your build meetings to see what is working and what isn't before you start finalizing things.

3- Open build will provide more opportunities for design convergence.

I don't see a major problem with this in the first place even if it turned out to be common, and it wouldn't be common. There are few teams that can competently pull off major copies of robots. They would need to be very well organized and disciplined to basically start their whole process in week 5 or later just to build a verbatim copy of another robot. They would probably end up with just as good a robot if they came up with their own ideas.

The other scenario that a team would pull a complete remake ignores the fact that a team capable of such a feat would probably not need to copy anyone.

Any more minor design convergence seems either unimportant and virtually unavoidable anyway. There are only so many effective ways to accomplish a given task in FRC with the current hardware constraints. Most teams are going to be more concerned with doing what they are most comfortable with rather than attempting to copy someone.

[Daria Wing]

Actually, this finally went to FIRST official and around the world. They have the survey online now, discussing the pros and cons of Stop Build Day. I honestly don't think that they will get rid of it, nor do I think that they should, but they might be extending it another week or two, which could be a hail mary for a lot of teams.

[Brian Maher]

Originally Posted by Daria Wing

but they might be extending it another week or two, which could be a hail mary for a lot of teams.

Did FIRST say they are considering this specifically?

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by Daria Wing

Actually, this finally went to FIRST official and around the world. They have the survey online now, discussing the pros and cons of Stop Build Day. I honestly don't think that they will get rid of it, nor do I think that they should, but they might be extending it another week or two, which could be a hail mary for a lot of teams.

I expect you are talking about the survey which had the results posted in this blog. The blog states there will be no changes for 2017.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Daria Wing

Actually, this finally went to FIRST official and around the world. They have the survey online now, discussing the pros and cons of Stop Build Day. I honestly don't think that they will get rid of it, nor do I think that they should, but they might be extending it another week or two, which could be a hail mary for a lot of teams.

Are you speculating or did you hear that info somewhere? There's no chance they are considering extending it a week or two. Would require starting build before New Year's (not happening) or extending champs into AP testing (not happening).