Meeting Length

[roboticsguy1988]

Our Team usually meets from either 4:00 to 8:00 or 5:00 to 9:00 Monday - Friday. And on the weekends, Saturdays are 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Sundays are 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM. We have all of our meeting dates and times on the calendar at our website, www.teamthrust.us.

[jgannon]

M-F 3:30-8:00, Sat. 10-4

It's a whole lot of time to be spending at school, but it's enjoyable.

[TimCraig]

This is our third year. Our first year we used the auto shop to construct our robot. That summer school discontinued auto shop and remodelled the space into a dance studio. However, we were lucky enough to get a small dedicated meeting space out of the deal. Basically, we have one of the service bay areas. We also got an old lathe, a drill press, grinder, stationary belt sander, old manual Bridgeport mill, a smaller Jet mill and drill, and all the hand tools we could squirrel away. It's pretty crowded in there with two active robots, old #1 hanging on the wall, and the current robot under construction. The goal doesn't help much either.

We probably have 20 members who at least show now and then with maybe 10 hard core. Right now for adults there's my wife and I as colead coaches and one parent plus the faculty advisor. The adults have been vetted by the school district so we can meet with the kids without the faculty advisor. The 3 of us also have keys to the room.

Our meeting schedule for the build is:
MTTF 3 pm - 6.
W 2 pm - 6 pm
S 10 am - 5 pm
S 1 pm - 4 pm.

After two years of having no time left to test and practice, we decided to go to the 7 day a week schedule from the start. Of course, my hours go long beyond these with ordering parts and doing detailed design work. And the option to go into real crunch mode exists if it looks like we need it to finish. I've stated that I'm NOT going to be building a robot in the pits.

We always get zapped kind of hard during the 2nd week of build as that's semester end and finals so we give the kids time off. We try to finalize the conceptual design before the kids disappear so I can do some detailed design, order parts, make parts, etc.

[Jeff K.]

We meet on:
Wednesdays - When school ends (1:30 or 3:00) til 4 or 8.
Fridays- Same
Saturdays - 10 or 12 til 8
Sundays - 12 til 8
We meet in a classroom at school

[HPA_Robotics_13]

Originally Posted by drewcampbell

I was just wondering, how long do other teams usually meet - and on what days? Also, where do you usually meet? Do you have a special room or place at your school?? Or your own building?

ALSO - how many do you have on your team?

Our team, DART 1284, meets Mon - Friday from 3:00 to 6:00, except on Wed. and Fri. we meet from 3:00 to 5:00.

Thanks for the feedback

HPA Robotics, at this point in the build season, meets Monday-Friday: 6:30-9:00 PM. Weekends are when we get most of our work done. Today, Saturday, our shop was open from 9 AM until 11 PM, and we pretty much had mentors around the whole time. We broke for lunch and went to town for chinese food. Tomorrow, Sunday, we're going to open shop at 10 AM and we'll probably call it a day sometime in early evening. The goal for tomorrow's meeting is to finish constructing our manipulator prototype, and successfully cap our center goal with a tetra manually from the joysticks.

This is HPA Robotics 4th year. The first year (I was a freshman) the weekend before the ship date on Tuesday the 4 or 5 other hardcore team members and I were at school working on our FIRST Robotics project from sometime Saturday morning until Monday morning. We DIDN'T go home. I slept through my first 2 classes on Monday.

We meet in a small building, about 20 x 40 feet, that is named the Engineering Center. It's nestled in behind our school's monolithic indoor tennis center and gym/pool complex. It was constructed in 1991, the year before our high school sent a team to the Tour de Sol in Europe. The same mentor that went to Europe with that group is our current lead mentor.

Our team has a total of less than 20 students. This year at least half our team is made up of freshman or new sophomores. They are all very enthusiastic, and by their junior year HPA Robotics will be very strong. But right now, myself and the 4 other veterans have a huge job to do: building this year's robot while showing the rookies how it's done.

[Anchi]

Originally Posted by drewcampbell

That is CRAP! You have to pay to use your school? If you don't mind me asking, how much?? and why???

We don't... thank the lord.

our school got mad when we asked for some money to enter. i dont see them complainign about the 40 kids on basketball teams per highschool. each member casts them $1440, football players cost them $739 each. they needa get their head outa their a** and realize we are more important that some meatheads. the district spends 21million a year on sports, five us a few k.....

[Koko Ed]

A reminder:
Search before you post!

[Petey]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

M-F 4-8pm

Last two weekends from like.. 9am(?) till about 9pm(?)

We have to pay to use our school on weekends.. so.. ya know.. that's why we don't use it that often.

But, other clubs and activities don't have to pay... so...

Wow.

We meet from 6:45-9 on Mon-Thurs, and 1-5 on Sat/Sun.

--Petey

[Hafize]

We meet Monday to Friday from 3:30 to 10 or 11
Weekends 12 to about 10
Probably soon we will start the weekend meetings at 9 or 10

We meet at our mentor's auto shop and their is about 8 members that come out but when it starts to get late there is about 3 members left.

Our IT side of the team meets almost everyday at the school and they stay till like 8.

We also have a mascot team and they come to Thursday and weekend meetings and their is about 8 people on that team.

Hafize

[Petey]

Originally Posted by Anchi

our school got mad when we asked for some money to enter. i dont see them complainign about the 40 kids on basketball teams per highschool. each member casts them $1440, football players cost them $739 each. they needa get their head outa their a** and realize we are more important that some meatheads. the district spends 21million a year on sports, five us a few k.....

Nice attitude.
"Some meatheads".

This is exactly the kind of cliqueish nerdyness that, if it continues to prevail, will eventually bring FIRST down.

Our school gives us very little money. Do not forget that FIRST is a new institution. FIRST has not the cachet nor the background nor the alumni of school sports. These things will come in time. Schools will come to realize the importance of FIRST. I share your frustration.

But to scoff at sports players and call them "some meatheads"? That's just B.S. Do not believe that FIRST prepares you as a well rounded person. FIRST, for all its qualities, skimps heavily on the need for physical fitness. The human player role, with the exception of last year's game and games like it, is that of a glorified switch. Even last years game could hardly be considered physically active. And what did we see? Complaints that now basketball stars were going to overrun FIRST. Frankly, I'd like to see more of that, and I'd like to see more FIRSTers overrunning basketball teams. Last year, my brother and I were two of only three kids on our FIRST team who played a school sports. We both played football. The other kid ran track.

This is absurd. This is the attitude that brings FIRST down, and is my single greatest dislike about FIRST and the FIRST community. I am seeing this attitude in action on my team. Some people on the team are very cliqueish. When one my friends--a girl who is president of the senior class, popular, etc--showed up at a meeting to see if she'd like to join, one of my teammates went up to her face and sneered "What are you doing here?". My friend hasn't been back to a meeting since. Our team is going to have about 8 people next year, because some people on the team are so determinedly exclusive. This post is an exclusive post--rather, it showcases the inherently exclusive attitude of the poster--and I think it perfectly demonstrates a problem in the FIRST community.

--Petey

[Projectchon]

M-F
morning(sometimes): 800-900
Lunch : 1130-1230
After School : 1515-1700/1800max
Saturday : 1230-1400
there are meanly 4-6 members working

The school didn't pay for us , the school board did, but is only the FIRST fee, we bascly need to pay our own parts for the robot....

[Goobergunch]

Our build season meetings are at CTDI (the company warehouse where we build our `bot) on weekdays after school from about 3:30 to 5:30 (sometimes longer) and on Saturdays for about three hours (11 AM - 2 PM, although it'll probably get longer as the season progresses).

[Charly]

To actually work on the robot we get very limited time in comparison to other teams.

Wednesdays 3:30 - 7:30 PM
Fridays 3:30 - 7:30 PM

Since we work at a college (NJIT), on the days that we don't meet I normally take the eletronics with me back to our school and work on them there. Otherwise we get very little time in and this storm isn't helping in the least.

[rocknthehawk]

team 549 meets tuesday and thursday 6-9ish and saturday 8-3ish. the last couple weeks we meet everyday after school until whenever we feel like leaving (usually something like 10ish).

we meet in our school's machine shop (our advisor is the teacher).

we have close to thirty kids on the team this year i think.

[KORN_lover_2007]

Team 1108 meets on weekdays from 5:30 to 9:30. At 9:30 we have to call our parents if we want to stay later and they have to tell a mentor that we can. On Saturday we meet from 9:00 to 5:00, but some people will stay until late into the night. On Sundays we meet from 1:00 to 5:00, although some people will get there earlier and stay there later.