how often does your team meet during build season?

[whytheheckme]

Originally Posted by vivek16

umm. On a side note, how long can a human being survive/remain sane without sleep?

-vivek

Randy Gardner holds the Guinness world record for the longest period of time a human being has gone without sleep for 264 hours (11 days) with the help of friends, TV reporters, and games of pinball. On his final day without sleep, Gardner presided over a press conference where he spoke without slurring or stumbling his words and in general appeared to be in excellent health.

But I'm sure that people have died long before this from lack of sleep. I seem to remember somebody dying after 10 days (can't find any sources right now to confirm that though.)

My record is slightly over 5 days, btw

Jacob

[octothorpe]

I used to think that sleep was just wasted time, and I'd stay up as late as possible as frequently as possible. Eventually I realized that sleep does have some positive benefits after all (at least for me) and tried to get more of it. Of course, there are still occasional exceptions to this approach *cough*3:15amPST*cough*.

Relative to robotics, as much as I generally enjoy the build season, I find the meetings, especially the longer ones, pretty tiring both mentally and physically (being on your feet for 12 hours is surprisingly fatiguing). The trick in my experience is to get enough sleep to keep from falling over (or getting flattened by cross-traffic), but at the same time to be sleep-deprived enough so that everything gets that extra ounce of humor injected into it, thereby maintaining optimal operating status for robotics.

[Pirate_Nelly354]

We're in our robotics room a long time during building season.
Monday-Friday : 3PM to 11:30PM
Saturday : 10AM to like 11:30PM also
Sunday, I can't remember, I think the same as Saturday also.

We practically live in the school during that time.
How we manage that and our schoolwork?
We still don't know.

[octothorpe]

Originally Posted by Pirate_Nelly354

We're in our robotics room a long time during building season.
Monday-Friday : 3PM to 11:30PM
Saturday : 10AM to like 11:30PM also
Sunday, I can't remember, I think the same as Saturday also.

Just thought I'd point out that this schedule equals 8.5 h * 5 plus 13.5 h * 2 = 42.5 + 27 = 69.5 hours, or about a 70-hour workweek. Compare this to data from the NSF which reports the average workweek for engineers as 48.64 hours. In general, this thread reminds me of a quote from one of our team members, who said about robotics: "Hobby? Try life!"

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by octothorpe

Just thought I'd point out that this schedule equals 8.5 h * 5 plus 13.5 h * 2 = 42.5 + 27 = 69.5 hours, or about a 70-hour workweek. Compare this to data from the NSF which reports the average workweek for engineers as 48.64 hours. In general, this thread reminds me of a quote from one of our team members, who said about robotics: "Hobby? Try life!"

About a dozen years ago when I first met Dean Kamen (which was about one day before I got involved with FIRST) he said this in response to a question about his all-denim wardrobe: "These are work clothes. If I'm awake, I'm working."

We can't all be Dean. But with the right attitude and preparation, we can make careers out of our passions.

[web_master_dpep]

Team 66 you haft to be at 3 of 5 of the meeting days.

[RyanS]

This year 294 met every day during the build season. Weekdays 5-9 and Weekends 9-9.

[vivek16]

do you think that people could do an after school activity and still do FIRST? One of our core group of four from last year does nordic skiing and would not be able to make it to meetings until five.

thanks, vivek

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by vivek16

do you think that people could do an after school activity and still do FIRST? One of our core group of four from last year does nordic skiing and would not be able to make it to meetings until five.

The TechnoKats arranged multiple meeting times on certain days last year, with one "shift" running from immediately after school until 6pm, and another from 6-9. This was mostly to accommodate engineering mentors with a day job, but it also made it possible for students participate in other afternoon events without missing too many build sessions.

[synth3tk]

Hmm, I never thought of doing it that way. We had a member in band who was constantly missing meetings. I might bring that up with our team, about starting later in the day.

[Madison]

488 is in a unique situation and so we run things a bit differently than most teams out there. We transport ~90% of our team members to and from meetings since, in some cases, it's a 30 mile trip and we live in an urban area and most of the students don't have cars.

Student meetings are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; from 6:00 pm until 10:00 pm during the week and from 9:00 am until about 5:00 pm on weekends. Mentors usually meet on the remaining days -- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday -- to organize and prepare for the following day's meeting. Because our enrollment is large -- anywhere between 40 and 60 students in a given year -- and because we're providing transportation to most of them, we "invite" students to meetings based on need, though everyone may attend on Saturdays. That means that some students might be meeting three or more times a week, while others come only on Saturday.

For teams that meet at a school, this sort of system probably isn't necessary, but because we have students coming to us from all over the city and because we're meeting at our sponsor out in the 'burbs, we have to run things a little bit differently than your average team.

[MChapman]

OH this is classic for Aces... mon-thur 6-9ish. Sat an sun 10-5/6. an if needed the over nighter before our scrimmage. its fun stuff!!

[Billfred]

It was made officially official today. To qualify for travel:

-70% of three-afternoons-a-week meetings (that's 14/20)
-60ish% of Saturday meetings (4/7)
-$100 (less, we hope, but that's the working number)

There are some alternatives in the works for those who just plain can't do one or the other, but by and large these are the rules.

[synth3tk]

Hmmm, club fees. That's an untraditional way of collecting money for a FIRST team, as far as I know. How's that working out for you all?

[vivek16]

club fees are implemented on team 2264 this year as well. They are more to retain members than to fundraise. there might be more people staying for something they paid for than not.

-vivek