How do you find time for sports and robots?

[JTRULOCK]

I find it hard to work my 2 jobs and go to volleyball practice and also make time for robotics but i just find that sleeping and homework are overrated and not really needed....i get really tired during the week so i just sleep on sunday. also our robotics team meets for a little over 6 hours each night after school (3-9) I normally go to practice first as it only goes until like 5. then robotics...on sat its easy cuz all i have is robotics....so thats my suggestion Just dont sleep or dont do homework or both!

[114gopher]

I play baseball and do robotics. Baseball goes from three to six Monday-Friday, and from 10 to 1 on Saturdays. Robotics goes until 9 Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, so I go straight there after practice. Doesn't leave much time for homework though...I'm also missing a few games to go to the competitions, but my coach was semi-OK with that. I guess what it all boils down to is compromise as much as you can, and if you can't, figure out where your strengths are and where your priorities are. Good Luck!

[suneel112]

I guess I live on the edge, with Track (Throwing, at that), Robotics, and a Diff Eq / Linear Algebra class that ends at 3:30. Also, freaking Caltech only gives provisional admissons, which means that I have to get A's this semester too (B's or a few C's will make them reject me).
I have missed about two track practices so far, and I have little time for homework, etc. since track is about 2 hrs and Robotics is about 4 hours per day. I guess the best answer is to live on the edge until you collapse, Then drop stuff.

[tiffany34990]

FIRST is my sport most definetly and then again i'm challenged when it comes to sports, i'm a walking disaster basically.

but i know various people that have done sports and other activities and robotics. just choose what you like but don't compeletly stress yourself out

[elknise]

I don't have to worry about sports because i'm bad at all of them except monday. I have been on a bowling team for a while though and during last season, a kid on my team from another high school was never there because of robotics. I also have a flexible scheduel for league games because i can pre or post bowl.

[greencactus3]

during FIRST i dont do any school sports. basically just for my own enjoyment such as snowboarding. and before FIRST season is CC and after is track/field.
all the while taking a few APs ACCLs Honors. and also i started to work this winter. and i race rc cars which takes about a full saturday almost every week. (not including all the stuff i fiddle with every day) but then again im not doing FIRST this season so i wonder how thats gonna work out next year. maybe i should l;imit the time im on CD if im too busy

[Mike]

...I just quit my lacrosse team, not enough time to
- Learn 3dsmax
- Learn Inventor
- Advance in c
- Write a field positioning system
- Go to nationals
- Do homework
and still play lacrosse.

[dubious elise]

Tennis for girls has always been in the fall, so I've never really had a problem with robotics (just interfering with fundraising on occasion, but nothing too bad). On the other hand, I just found out today that I got cut from the soccer team because I missed half of tryouts to go to Boilermaker. What can I say? Robotics has way better people and is way more fun any day!
Besides, I do need some free time to teach tennis lessons, teach special needs religion classes, get confirmed (on hold until after nationals ), work on AP homework (bad decision, only one AP and one college class next year...), and practice violin. Though, I must admit, sleep is always nice too...

[Garth1388]

I play football, but luckily that is in the fall so I only miss the pre-season team building stuff.

However at my school, football is a legacy (I won't even begin to go into it), so I have to weightlift throughout the entire year. This cuts into about the first 45 mins of the meeting, which is usually just anouncments.

The major thing that I did was to talk to my coaches and our mentor and work out a compramise, on a bye week, I could miss two days of practice to attend team building.

[nobrakes8]

My advice is play a fall sport and/or spring sport and to be organized. If your school is the main school on your FIRST team, then it's both your robotics advisors and coaches who should understand you need to do certain things like go to robotics compeitions, show up on kick off, make an appearence at robotics 2-3 days a week and maybe need to leave practice early those days. Your robotics advisors need to understand you need to be at games, practices, conditioning training, etc.., and I'm sure the coaches and advisors in MOST cases would be understanding.

I'm almost anal retentive with my organization as far as how I spend time. I work everyday, participate in the Co-op program my high school has avaible, I also am active in NHS, president of our SkillsUSA chapter, cross country captain, and maintaing a 2nd rank in my class.

NHS and SkillsUSA I only attend meetings during school hours, with the exception of the SkillsUSA Championships and NHS trip to NYC (good free food).

I work everyday, I'm just lucky my school has a program that allows juniors and seniors to leave school during the school day while in shop (tech school.. we go half the year in our shop half in academics). I would work until 2:30, go to school and practice whatever sport I was playing that season. During robotics I would work from 9-4:30 during my shop period or 2:30-5 during my academics, then go to robotics for 6pm, and prioritized robotics over working at the school open house and other SkillsUSA and NHS activities.

If you have understanding people surrounding you and know how to organize your time wisely you can effectivly compete in sports, robotics, and be in any club that you choose at your school.

[RoboMom]

My son sat on the bench for the entire lacrosse game last night because he did not attend the previous practice and game. He missed those because he was driving a bot that was on the finalist alliance at the Chesapeake.
The coach seems to understand. Probably doesn't like it, but understands.

[crubio]

Well since most of our active team members are in sports our meetings didnt start untill 6pm and went till we wanted to finish. But between Swimming and Track I was only late a handfull of times.

[Holtzman]

There is only so much time in a day. It is extremely difficult to compete competitively, and participate in robotics. I've been racing bikes on the road for 6 years now, and a member of 1114 for 3 years now.

In my rookie year (2003) I didn't even really know what FIRST was. So I went about my training normally through the winter and into the spring. I missed a couple of days of regionals because of training, and I didn't attend championship, which I later regretted. So at the end of robotics season, I had decided that next year I would attempt to do both seriously. Cycling and Robotics.


2004 rolls around. I had earned myself a spot on an Amateur cycling team in Canada. Build season comes, and before I knew it, I hadn't been on my bike in a month. Regionals come, and the weathers getting nicer, but I still wasn't training. Regionals are just too time consuming and tiring to do both there. We (1114) traveled 6 out of 8 weekends in March and April, and I hadn't gotten nearly the amount of training in necessary to race competitively with my team.

Once regionals and championship had ended, I was back training normally, but my form and fitness never recovered back to the level of 1 year ago. I got kicked off my cycling team, and swore I'd never let robotics interfere with cycling again.

And yet here I am, 1 year later. Do I regret wasting an entire cycling season? nope, not for a second. All the places I went with robotics, and all the people I met more than make up for it.

[JMH]

I just tell the robotics coach that sports (soccer and lacrosse) come before the meetings and a go to the competitions as the human player which is where sports come in to play with robotics.

[nightrenegade00]

Originally Posted by themaxim

im an aspiring football and lacrosse player as well as a wrestler. i take all honors classes, no free period, and im also a musician as well. what do i do? i leave school at 3, go to wrestling, after that pick up food, go to robotics from 630-9, then i come home and shower, and i start hw at 10. and then i wake up 630 the following day and do it all over.

Sounds a bit like my schedule but only during the spring. I used to do Football Basketball/robotics and Track my freshman year. Last year I quit basketball and my schedule was football robotics and track. Football wasn't fun anymore and got cultish so I dropped that and now I only have to work on track. It sucks now before nationals because I'll do my track workout and then at a meeting ill be asked to do human player running. they still want us to make a human player training video but were goin to have to make it on days we dont have track. Even as a thrower we still run and lift which wears you out. Its not as bad as it was and I like it the way it is now.

-Crash