Hours spent during build season

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Libby K

& that's just build season...

Ha! Yea... I got a package last night with robot parts in it and my wife emphatically asked "wasn't that robot put away?". I facetiously replied "yea, but then there's the practice robot, and your genius husband can do a lot with 30 pounds".

Build season ends May 1st. I think it's time we faced that head on.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Build season ends May 1st. I think it's time we faced that head on.

This is the often unspoken reality of the situation.

[Dalas]

So far we've been spending about 6 hours on weekdays and 12 hours on Saturdays and school holidays. Total we've spent about 280 hours each, which sounds crazy looking back. Just think if we were all getting paid!

[evanperryg]

6-9pm Monday's through Friday, 10-4 on Saturdays. Students are assigned specific days, based on what days they tell us they're open at the beginning of the season.

[abigailthefox]

This year we spent less time than last year, and I personally had 170+ hours, which was at the upper end of hour totals.
We keep hour counts with sign-in/sign-out sheets because 60+ hours equals team-member level commitment (for team members: travel expenses are paid to events, team shirt is free, eligible to be on drive team), and 120+ hours equals varsity level commitment (all benefits of team member commitment, plus FRC is recognized as a varsity sport at our school, so the school will grant you a varsity letter).

[DaneeR]

Our team is pretty small and the kids have other after school activities as well. We build 6:30- 9pm M-F (we bumped up to starting at 6 the last two weeks but many could not make it there that early.) And 9am- 4pm on Saturday. The last Sunday we did 1:00- 5ish. We missed some days for snow. I don't think anyone did more then 120 hours of shop time.
We have 3 'real' mentors and me and a dad (I train horses, he does taxes).

If build season and high school musical were not the exact same time of year, that would be great

[MechEng83]

Our build season schedule is M-F 6:30-10pm, Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm.

This totals up to 165 scheduled hours.

On MLK & Presidents' Day, we meet all day long, plus extended hours on weekends. We don't let any kids stay past 10pm on a school night.

Our logged hours (which are incomplete due to a myriad of reasons) show 6729.19 student hours and 2196.26 mentor hours.

The highest hour student logged 242 hours and the highest hour mentor logged 278.19 hours.

These totals don't count any work done outside the shop.

[2544HCRC]

Originally Posted by marccenter

Personally my wife finds my commitment very disruptive to our relationship so using more time for the robot team is not practical. I am very happy that the RoboRavens#1 (1188) coach and I build together allowing us to make both of our work and personal issues more manageable.

I would like to hear more mentor's opinions experience with this. I have had the same problem for years.

We spend Tues, Wed, Friday 6-9 and Saturday 9-1 plus the Sunday 9-2 after kickoff. Generally as the lead mentor/coach I get done about an hour after the kids leave. I am here EVERY day. This gives me just enough time to do planning and correcting during build season (I teach). I've long ago given up trying to correct and robot at the same time. I always seem to be trying and failing to achieve the work, robot, home balance. How do you other mentors do it?

Many of our students are in AP classes and can't commit to more time than this. We also have students in winter activities and sports. How do your students do it? Would love to hear more.

[sanddrag]

Team 696 2016 Build Season Stats

Total People-Hours: 6957
Total Student-Hours (30-student team): 5585
Average Hours Per Student Per Week (outside of school hours): 34.1
Average Total Hours Per Student: 186
Highest Single Student Hours: 323
Highest Single Mentor Hours: 382
Total Mentor-Hours (9 mentors): 1371
Average Total Hours Per Mentor: 152

All stats are from Kickoff through today.

[Mike Marandola]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Team 696 2016 Build Season Stats

Total People-Hours: 6957
Total Student-Hours (30-student team): 5585
Average Hours Per Student Per Week (outside of school hours): 34.1
Average Total Hours Per Student: 186
Highest Single Student Hours: 323
Highest Single Mentor Hours: 382
Total Mentor-Hours (9 mentors): 1371
Average Total Hours Per Mentor: 152

All stats are from Kickoff through today.

How do you guys log this?

[mdiradoorian]

Originally Posted by Mike Marandola

How do you guys log this?

If it has not changed since I left, they use a sign in/sign out system where they scan their student/mentor ID bar codes into a computer that logs the amount of time they each spent an excel spreadsheet.

[vhcook]

I think we had around 150 hours of official open shop time.

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by Drew_trak

Hello,
This year was a big transition year for team 599 as our main coach moved up North. Due to this shift, our build season schedule was different and moved around so we struggled as a team to finish on time. I was wondering if any team has an approximation of how many hours or any other reference as to how much time they put in this build season. We would love to see how much time other teams are putting in. Thank you - see you at the competitions!

Sorry to hear about you losing Mr. Van. Definitely a big loss for the team.

I'm curious why the team schedule was so different and moved around rather than trying to keep it the same.

Having mentored 599 and 1070 for 10 years, I worked with my new team to follow 599's original (from year 2 and on) work schedule to prevent burn out for myself, the teacher, the other mentor, and the students.

We worked 3 days a week for 2 hours and on Saturday from 10 - 4. The only days we went late were Mon and Tues of Bag and Tag. Those were 5 - 10pm and 3 - 11:30pm, I believe. There were a few days where the students had the day off from school and went in for about 6 hours that the mentors were unable to show up. Otherwise, the mentors were there almost the entire time.

Adjustments to the time of day were also made during Finals Week to allow students to have time to study after robotics.

[Jon Stratis]

For us, 15 hours of meetings per week. That doesn't include other time for the design team or captain, or anything done outside of the regular meetings.

Myself, I hit 225 hours on stop build day. By I do other regional stuff as well.

[elil]

My team met on the following schedule during the build season:

Monday 4-8
Friday 4-9
Saturday 9-6
Sunday 9-6
MLK: 9-9
School's professional day: 12-9

Additionally, we added a weekend working to 9, and I worked during lunch, my free block, and after school every day during the last two weeks.
We missed one weekend and presidents day due to snow, and did not start at 9 one weekends until week three (we started at 10). So 255 hours of shop time for me, plus time CADing (Maybe another 20 hours?).