Limits on Team Hours

[Foster]

If you say you're pulling in 400 hours in the robotics lab (meaning, not counting work at home). Even if you work all seven days of the week, you're still pulling in 9.5 hours PER DAY!!!! 9.5 hours of robotics everyday, plus 7 hours of school, and there's only 7.5 hours left in the day....Not to be rude or anything, but thats a little much.....

It is, or is it? and that is what this discussion is about. (and you forgot those 18 hour weekends) In a four month period can you do 400 hours? I'll speak to my case of working, being a VEX mentor and being an FRC mentor. The time commitment is huge. I spend a good 1/4 of my time in emails, ordering parts and doing updates to the web site to keep people informed. And in some ways it matches what happens on a big project launch. So I spend 'spare time' doing robot team stuff.

Perhaps this is what the 2011 season is about for your team. As has been observed time and time again - if you think this about robots - you're missing the point.

It's never been about the robots. But the robots make an interesting misdirection that we all use. So its ALL about the robots.

200 true hours in the lab

Over 30% of my time is ordering parts, driving for parts, updating websites, dealing with emails and putting together required paperwork. Next time your robot club meets, stand up and go "Hey who is the NEMO (Non Engineering Mentor) and what do you do?" And when they go through the 100's of tasks that happen behind the scenes try not to be surprised that the engineering part of a FIRST robot is less than 1/2 of the things that go on.

Oh yea I forgot, reading and posting on CD, thats a good 10 hours a week, but thats another thread.