how often does your team meet during build season?

[Billfred]

This year for 1618:

Monday/Tuesday/Thursday 3:15-5:00
Saturday 9:00-1:00 (or later, if we need to).

Last year, it was just Monday/Thursday/Saturday until the traditional Week 5-or-6 six-day-a-week crunch. I hope the extra weekday will take some of the load off, particularly in the early design phases.

Of those meetings, the kids have to make X percentage of weekday meetings and Y percentage of Saturday meetings in order to qualify for travel.

[vivek16]

I had no idea that people had build sessions so long. I am going to be leadership this year and I was just wondering if there should be someone there all the time?

Wow, I am stunned at how much people meet. I think we might stick with until about 6 each day after school(our school starts at 7:30 and gets out at 2:30) so we will have a good 3 hours of build time everyday. We probably will have saturdays mandatory unless religion requires otherwise.

That is just what my opinion right now. I am taking out the time requirement part of the rookie presentation and it will require some serious discussion on the veteran members' behalf. Thank you guys and please keep the opinions coming.

thanks, vivek

[EricH]

Saturdays 9-5; after 5, break for church (one of the services starts at 6:00, but there is a meal at 5 and we build pretty close by). Required to show up for a little while.
Sunday afternoon: typically around 1 or 2-whenever. I often left at 6:30 for Scouts. Not required.
Monday -Thursday: After 7 or so to around 9. Wednesdays were pretty sparse due to other commitments from a large portion of the team. Not required; pretty much just subteams.
Friday: 7-whenever (remembering the marathon the next day). Mandatory; usually a status update and future planning happened either here or Saturday morning. Also travel and other "miscellaneous" meetings at this time.

Translation: Someone will be in the shop almost every night and at least half the day on weekends. Exceptions: Super Bowl Sunday (nobody shows up) and Valentine's Day (no married mentors allowed in the shop, unless they have made other arrangements for another time, though we've eased a little on this).

[Vexkingof716]

Team 716 has a schedule that changes week by week. We start with the sunday after kick off from 12 to 5. that is the only time we meet on a sunday unless the robot was totally massacered from winter warzone scrimmage. then we meet monday thursday saturday, then after 2 to three weeks monday thru saturday. during the weekdays we meet 5 to 9, and saturday 9 to 5. the day before we ship on that monday we start at 9 till the robot is ready. in the past they have had to work till midnight, luckly we ship our robot from a factory that runs 24/7.

[Koko Ed]

We meet Wednesday's 5-8
Saturdays from 9-5
Plus extra hours are required.
Face it. If you're just working build season on your scheduled hours then you're just doing it part time.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Our mechanics sub-group meets almost every day during the build season. During the workweek we only meet for three or so hours to discuss strategy and design, and to order parts. We almost never build anything during these days. This allows the students to focus on homework and school.

Friday and Saturday are the days when we actually build things. We work until the parts are finished. If they're done at 7:00 that’s a good thing If they're done at 1:00... that just sucks. We figure that no one is actually going to be doing homework on these days anyways, so robotics won't interfere with school.

We also work on Sunday, but only until 4:00 so people can finish their homework.

[Dan Petrovic]

Monday - Thursday 6:00PM - 9:00PM
Friday - 3:00PM - 9:00PM
Saturdays 9:00AM - 6:00PM
Sunday 12:00PM - 6:00PM

Inevitably, those hours are extended later in the build season, but that's how things are for the first few weeks.

[synth3tk]

We're revamping our schedule this year, but last season was:

Tuesdays & Thursdays ~ 2:30p - 6:00p
Saturdays ~ 8:00a - 4:00p

Week before regional we worked everyday from 2:30-6:00 and Sunday from 3:00p-5:00p. This year we will be making Saturdays mandatory and different subteams will meet on different days, only requiring members to come when their division meets. Of course, if you want to come every day, it won't be discouraged.

[Smaug]

depending on the group they decide when to meet but manufacturing meets every day of the build season and we stay till we are kicked out of the building

[IndySam]

The first weeks are design and prototyping and the real building doesn't start until week three or four.

The first two or three weeks are Mon-Thurs 6:00-9:00 (but our brains are working a lot longer.) After that we will also meet on Saturdays and depending on how it's going we will throw in a Sunday or two.

We will absolutely work the last Saturday and Sunday and as long as we can on Monday before ship (hopefully just practicing.)

[Romeo1351]

Build, we meet every weekday, 3-6PM (give or take an hour), and Saturdays 9-4 (9-9 when it gets to crunch time).

[nautica]

During the design process, we have around 3-4 meetings a week. When building starts, we basically meet everyday of the week, from 7 up to midnight (although most people leave by 10 ish). On weekdays, only about 4 people come to work a day. There have been Fridays when I worked at a machine shop from 4-11 at night (free pizza for dinner though).

[Cory]

We don't really have set hours.

Mentors usually show up between noon and two on weekdays. Kids show up between two and three. We work until 7-8:00 or later pretty much every day. Fridays we stay till 9 or 10, often.

Weekends we usually get there around 10-12, and work till 8-10. Sometimes later.

When it gets down to crunch time, we're pretty much there nonstop. Last year I slept in our lab from Thursday through Tuesday.

In 2006 we tried to take Sundays off at first. It didn't really work. We got behind and started working Sundays anyways.

We didn't take any days off that I can remember... Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine's Day... all fair game (unfortunately)

[octothorpe]

As Mika said, we mostly just meet Wednesday and Friday evenings and then all day Saturday, with the occasional Sunday thrown in if necessary. But the last weekend (from Thursday night to Monday night) most of the core members spend all their waking hours in the shop. We've yet to sleep there overnight, but there's been talk of resorting to that for the coming build season (efficiency?). Although it might be useful to have more meetings, many of our members have homework or other extracurricular conflicts, and also it's hard enough already to find parent volunteers for all the supervision and food slots.

Originally Posted by njamietech

we have build meetings every day after school till 8:00 or later and sometimes we have builds on saturdays.

How do you guys get homework done? I mean, I'm all for sacrificing schoolwork in favor of robotics, but still, it seems like meeting every day after school until late in the evening would be a recipe for either zero homework done or zero sleep.

[JohnBoucher]

Weekdays 4:00 to 8:00 PM. Last two weekends if necessary.