The negative effects of FRC

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Just want to point out that if anyone knows how to manage their time well, it's Mike and Team 67. They meet only 3 times a week during build season - 4pm to 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 8am to 4pm on Saturdays. And yet look at their consistent robot quality year after year.

I noticed more and more top tier teams that cut down on their meeting times or always manged their time well enough to not meet 7 days a week. Next year, I am having Code Orange reduce from 7 days a week to 4 days a week. I noticed this year, our productivity nose dived after meeting continuously for 20 days, thus i think we will be a lot more productive long term by taking days off.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Mark Sheridan

I noticed more and more top tier teams that cut down on their meeting times or always manged their time well enough to not meet 7 days a week. Next year, I am having Code Orange reduce from 7 days a week to 4 days a week. I noticed this year, our productivity nose dived after meeting continuously for 20 days, thus i think we will be a lot more productive long term by taking days off.

Interesting. We're hoping to take a different approach to revamp our schedule. We're looking to bring FRC inside the school day, 1:30-3:00pm Monday through Friday year round. Fewer hours per day, more days. This will get us about double the Fall training hours that we have had previously, and maybe half the build hours. We may add some Friday nights and Saturdays into the schedule as well for build season.

We're going to be shifting our focus from building great robots to building great people who are highly skilled and very educated. And if we still happen to get good robots out if the process, cool, but if we don't, we've achieved a better outcome than just the robot.

To win at FIRST (trophy and banner wise) takes either an enormous amount of time in which you do nothing else or you have to get lucky,which we never seem to do. To win as a team takes only a set of goals and a plan to achieve them, and a schedule that YOU set. I'm almost done trying to win at FIRST, and I'm ready to go for more personal and home-grown "wins". I want to get back to learning things and making cool things with students because WE want to, not because FIRST required us to or because we're trying to outdo those best teams that we maybe never will.

FIRST Robotics is a program who caters to those who are quick and sharp. It's not for every student, and in some ways, is not a great way to educate students, due to the intense competition and schedule. Other programs and projects can achieve some very excellent educational outcomes on much more reasonable schedules.

The amount of time FIRST teams spend and the level of competition these days is way beyond what it ever was when I was in high school. Back then, your average team had a reasonable shot at winning. Nowadays, you're average team doesn't stand a chance in my mind. It's become a competition of who can spend more hours.

[Basel A]

I really overdid it in high school (to the point that I chose myself to be less involved in FRC my senior year). I really think that helped me with time management, willpower to focus, etc., skills that have served me really well in college and internships. At the time, though, it was hell. FRC was awesome, getting a few hours of sleep a night for several months was not. My advice to the OP is to step back as much as you feel you need. The team will survive without you (as long as you're upfront about your intentions and don't just flake).

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The amount of time FIRST teams spend and the level of competition these days is way beyond what it ever was when I was in high school. Back then, your average team had a reasonable shot at winning. Nowadays, you're average team doesn't stand a chance in my mind. It's become a competition of who can spend more hours.

This is so true!
In addition, teams are competing in more events than the normal 1-2 in a season back in the day.
Districts imo have created a great inequality both with respect to cost and play time vs. teams that compete in regionals. We have to work so much harder to get equal playing time!

Wait til bag/tag is eliminated (assuming here), you can bet that the average team of old wont have a shot at making eliminations.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Just want to point out that if anyone knows how to manage their time well, it's Mike and Team 67. They meet only 3 times a week during build season - 4pm to 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 8am to 4pm on Saturdays. And yet look at their consistent robot quality year after year.

Ryan,

Thanks for the accolades, but I didn't really mean us. I was referring to teams like 1114 whose majority of mentors only meet on weekends, and 1678 who I'm hoping Mike Corsetto will elaborate on because I'd be interested in hearing it.

As for our 3 day build schedule, that is our 'official schedule' where all student attendance is required. It usually is accurate for the first 3 weeks until we really start building a robot. Until then it's a lot of detailed design hours that aren't always done on site. After week 3 we start meeting more often to actually build both robots. we add unofficial Monday and Wednesday meetings around then if there are parts that need to be made or assembled or practice bot needs programming. Week 6 usually ends up being a 6 day week. In 3 years on HOT I've only come in on one Sunday - this year.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Mike Schreiber

1678 who I'm hoping Mike Corsetto will elaborate on because I'd be interested in hearing it.

1678 meets four days a week during Build/Comp season. Wed/Thurs 6:30pm-9pm, Sat/Sun 9am-5pm. Additionally, we meet 9am-5pm on Mondays that the school has off (ends up being 2-3 days during this time period).

To set the stage, I am our only mechanical design mentor and I don't CAD parts, just review student work. We "get away" with limited design resources and limited meeting schedule by making purposeful compromises, planning well, and communicating outside of meeting times.

More on our design compromises here and here.

Some of our design review's happen in person, but many happen on my iPhone via the GrabCAD app at around 4am (when I wake up). I take some screenshots, highlight some things, and send feedback to student designers for them to work on during their own time.

We can't always hit the four meeting per week goal. Our robot design this season placed an enormous burden on our Robot Programming Team. They met closer to 6 days/week most of the competition season, knocking out bugs and iterating 2-ball auto. We are hoping that many of the lessons learned this season will result in established technical and communication improvements that lessen the burden on our Robot Programmers next season.

We had two or three very late nights for programming that ended up not being as productive as they were harmful to our productivity on subsequent days. We will be avoiding late nights next year.

I love the responsibility/stress of FRC. A quote from a mentor of mine:

"The seed of potential is cracked by the weight of responsibility."

The higher the stakes, the higher the payoff. That's the magic of FRC.

-Mike

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

1678 meets four days a week during Build/Comp season. Wed/Thurs 6:30pm-9pm, Sat/Sun 9am-5pm. Additionally, we meet 9am-5pm on Mondays that the school has off (ends up being 2-3 days during this time period).

That (not counting the all day Monday meetings) still is more hours per week than the average team that meets six days a week (Monday through Saturday). There is no way to build consistently very competitive robots without putting a lot of time into it...

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

That (not counting the all day Monday meetings) still is more hours per week than the average team that meets six days a week (Monday through Saturday). There is no way to build consistently very competitive robots without putting a lot of time into it...

You're probably right. What are the average hours per week for an FRC team?

I assume we sit at around 22-25 hours per week during build/comp season.

-Mike

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

You're probably right. What are the average hours per week for an FRC team?

I assume we sit at around 22-25 hours per week during build/comp season.

-Mike

when I was on 2046, meetings were every day from 3:00-5:00 (ok probably more like 8:00 for some people), as well as 11:00 (AM)-whenever people left on Saturday. Almost none of these meetings were manditory, though, except for some tuseday meetings. IIRC the hour requirements for team members boiled down to something like 15 per week, though you just needed to meet a total amount of hours by the end of build season. This is all assuming I'm remembering stuff correctly, though... it's been what, a whole year now?

[Oblarg]

I've written several posts on this already, so I'll be brief, but you're not at all alone in your struggles, OP. I burned out quite badly in 2014 and 2015, to the point where I was legitimately concerned about my health. This year, I was forced to step back and do less, and it was certainly the right thing to do.

You, and only you, can determine what your own hard limits are. Find them, and don't push yourself past them. FIRST is not worth that. Push yourself within those limits. Push what you can do with the time you can afford to spend - always strive to be better! - but don't ever feel compelled to jeopardize your own physical or mental well-being in pursuit of FRC. It is not good for you, and it ultimately is not good for FRC (it's much more harmful to a team to lose a member or mentor for a long period of time, possibly permanently, to burnout than it is to make due with somewhat less of their time on a continuing basis).

[itsjustjon]

Biggest negative is definitely the time commitment. It affects almost everything else that I either enjoy doing or am already committed to completing.

- Schoolwork: Hah, no time for that unless you can manage your time like an insane person. While this is a good goal to strive for, it is very hard to attain and unrealistic for some. And yes, FIRST may look great on college apps and life experience in general, but very few top tier colleges will consider you if your grades are being sacrificed at the expense of an extracurricular.

- Social Life: I have a sneaking suspicion that many of us go dark in terms of our social lives during the robotics season. Not all of my friends are in robotics, and I miss out on a lot of fun stuff that exists outside of FIRST when I participate in FIRST.

- Self-Everything: Stress is great for short or moderate periods of time. Its what propels me to have an insane work ethic for last-minute projects and it lights a fire under me so I generally get stuff done. Surprisingly though, stress for an extended length of time doesn't do the mind or body any good. That's not even considering the amount of people you potentially affect when you're stressed, too.

- The Team: Forcing a group of people to constantly work (and sometimes deal with) one another doesn't do any amount of good for the relationships and friendships that exist within the team. Stress, lack of sleep, and other such byproducts of Build Season strains more friendships than it helps.

These are major things which have probably been discussed beforehand. That being said, eh, who cares?

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Mike Schreiber

Ryan,

Thanks for the accolades, but I didn't really mean us. I was referring to teams like 1114 whose majority of mentors only meet on weekends, and 1678 who I'm hoping Mike Corsetto will elaborate on because I'd be interested in hearing it.

As for our 3 day build schedule, that is our 'official schedule' where all student attendance is required. It usually is accurate for the first 3 weeks until we really start building a robot. Until then it's a lot of detailed design hours that aren't always done on site. After week 3 we start meeting more often to actually build both robots. we add unofficial Monday and Wednesday meetings around then if there are parts that need to be made or assembled or practice bot needs programming. Week 6 usually ends up being a 6 day week. In 3 years on HOT I've only come in on one Sunday - this year.

I think its fair to say that not every team, especially ours, can follow a schedule like Team 67 or 1114, if what youre referencing is true.
We meet 7 days a week and they pretty long per day. In fact, its the opposite for us where I can count on my fingers the last 10 years we took a Sunday off (Superbowl Sunday included for some).
The biggest factor is mentor experience and not every team has that level of talent relatively speaking.
We definitely rank among the best when it comes to commitment, desire, and a determination to succeed. However, we spend way too many hours trying to overcome talent in trying to do so.
There is a lot of pressure when you spend lots of money to attend regionals and the robot never coming back to your shop (and no 2nd robot) from end of build season to the middle of May.
If I had one suggestion that would put the situations described by the OP on FIRST, it would be to provide resources/suggestions to teams on how to address some of them. Many newer/rookie teams have leaned on veteran teams for suggestions....I get that. But perhaps coming from FIRST it would do a whole lot more for the FRC community.

Teams with experience and resources have a huge advantage when it comes to FRC tournament logistics. They can focus more on the competition, strategy and scouting vs. those that dont........including making sure students stay hydrated/fed.

[jgerstein]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Just want to point out that if anyone knows how to manage their time well, it's Mike and Team 67. They meet only 3 times a week during build season - 4pm to 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 8am to 4pm on Saturdays. And yet look at their consistent robot quality year after year.

1257 used to meet 5-6 days a week during build season. After a disastrous 2013 season we stepped back a bit to do some serious re-evaluation of how we operated. One thing we realized was that as much as we stressed out about not having enough time, we weren't using the time we did have effectively - our students (and mentors) were suffering from burnout and exhaustion, and it was leading to stress, anger, and a great deal of wasted time.

We ended up cutting our build schedule back to 3 hour meetings, 3 days a week, with the option to have additional work time if it was needed. It turned out that we got more work done in fewer hours, and without students failing their classes due to robotics overload. I hope to teach my students that more work isn't necessarily better.

[gblake]

OP, I'm curious.

A) It appears you were focused on building a great on-the-field robot, and on getting far down the path to Einstein? Is that true? If I'm wrong, ignore the next question.

B) How do you think you would feel (then and now) if instead your last year/season had focused on getting as many non-STEM students as possible to try STEM things that they hadn't done before, while also helping build a fun, adequate, middle-of-the-road robot? If you did do that, along with everything else you described, my advice is to stop volunteering for too much bad stress. If you didn't, I'm sure that FIRST wants participants to use the FRC program to place a greater emphasis those non-STEM students than participants place on the robot.

Creating the robots and going to competitions is an FRC tool, not the FRC goal. It's very easy to shed bad stress if you look at things that way. Shedding bad stress, is a good thing.

Blake

[jijiglobe]

Originally Posted by gblake

OP, I'm curious.

A) It appears you were focused on building a great on-the-field robot, and on getting far down the path to Einstein? Is that true? If I'm wrong, ignore the next question.

My team is not focused entirely on competitive success, but we do work really hard towards it. We also work really hard on outreach programs to help students learn, and spread the culture of FIRST that we love. We believe that competitive success grants us a larger platform with which to accomplish this. If we were a less competitive team, for instance, we would not have been invited to participate in the China Robotics Challenge, which has been an incredible experience for our team, and a huge benefit to FRC in China.

Originally Posted by gblake

B) How do you think you would feel (then and now) if instead your last year/season had focused on getting as many non-STEM students as possible to try STEM things that they hadn't done before, while also helping build a fun, adequate, middle-of-the-road robot? If you did do that, along with everything else you described, my advice is to stop volunteering for too much bad stress. If you didn't, I'm sure that FIRST wants participants to use the FRC program to place a greater emphasis those non-STEM students than participants place on the robot.

Blake

While there are positive sides to my teams competitive culture, as a team with ~100 members, there is a huge organizational responsibility that is given to our leaders. It's just hard to lead the team effectively without taking on some amount of stress. My school is also (by some measures) the top STEM school in the city, so it's hard for me to reach non-stem students, furthermore, our team is pushing the limits of reasonable size, and it would be difficult to reach more students within our team.