The negative effects of FRC

[Knufire]

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.

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

Yes, why would someone ever chase excellence? That sounds rather uninspiring. We should definitely all sit down and hold hands singing kumbayah, because anything that stressed you out too much is never worth it.

If that was the sentiment of a team that I joined in high school, I would have never stayed in or cared about this program past graduation.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Knufire

Yes, why would someone ever chase excellence? That sounds rather uninspiring. We should definitely all sit down and hold hands singing kumbayah, because anything that stressed you out too much is never worth it.

If that was the sentiment of a team that I joined in high school, I would have never stayed in or cared about this program past graduation.

Who, other than you, said anything about not chasing excellence?

The OP gave a fine answer that shed useful light on his situation.

Your comment seems to imply that you think there is only one kind of excellence in FRC. There are many, and few of them require a one-dimensional pursuit of a blue banner. Teaching students about them, and enabling students to pursue them, would be a fine accomplishment any FRC team could be proud of.

I remain sure that FIRST wants participants to use the FRC program to place a greater emphasis on those non-STEM students, than participants place on the robot.

Blake

[techhelpbb]

Have pushed myself beyond rational limits quite a few times I agree with those who encourage to recognize limits.
FRC is a great thing but not worth driving tired, operating machine tools unsafely or ruining your life over.

If you can not be competitive without taking risks too big you are not operating safely.
What risk is too big varies from situation to situation.
Good leaders know to ask for a lot and settle for the reasonable.

Feel free to disagree but there are limits and within that inconsistency, sustainability dictates you find common ground not push to a breaking point over and over.
Have built utterly massive systems: crisis managers love their emergencies but that means they get desensitized to what they lose being ruled by crisis.
Do not make the mistake of being a crisis manager it is no different than being an adrenaline junkie.

(Sorry about the double post I had to delete. It was a phone thing.)

[dtengineering]

Let's remember the first paragraph of the O.P.'s comments... we all feel FRC has a net positive impact.

To say that you can get positive return without any investment... well, I keep getting emails that offer that, but somehow I don't believe them.

The investment in FRC does require some sacrifice... a bit of sleep there, some unhealthy eating there... maybe an occasional homework assignment that is completed to the "good enough" stage rather than "excellent".

There are many careers that offer a trade off between investment and return, too. For those who want to work 24/7 in stressful environments... you can probably achieve higher financial returns than those who would rather go for a bike ride on a sunny afternoon, or spend time with their family.

Learning a little about your own comfort levels while doing FRC might help you make some good career choices down the road.

You're right that there are some 'negatives' to FRC, but if you look at them as investments, and feel you've got a net positive return... then they aren't so bad, are they?

Jason

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

you can probably achieve higher financial returns than those who would rather go for a bike ride on a sunny afternoon, or spend time with their family.

Learning a little about your own comfort levels while doing FRC might help you make some good career choices down the road.

I went from wealthy to poor to wealthy again by the age of 40.
Recognizing what you actually get for the work is the key skill to success.
You can work till you die and be neither happy nor wealthy for that.

FRC can give you a lot but there are limits.
So you have to ask what you hope to achieve and, if you lead, how you help those you lead achieve their goals to make it worth doing.
Success in FRC is largely not just winning because if it was this would not be worth doing for a lot of people.

As an investment FRC is actually pretty low risk because there is a lot of return even for those that are not the best on Earth frequently.
So not sure we need a crisis as much as strategic commitments.

Financially FRC is really a hedge fund not a short sale.

[frcguy]

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

We met around 28-32 hours per week during the build season, and stepped it down a significant amount afterwards.

[jweston]

Originally Posted by jijiglobe

My experience as president was hugely stressful, and left me in a position where I had to stop and ask myself if it was all worth it. I have to admit that this year, during build season, I wasn't really in a good place emotionally; there were just too many things to worry about, on top of my classwork. On top of all that, my team made it to Einstein this year, which left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I'm happy that my team was successful, and that my hard work payed off. On the other hand, I'm worried about the implications of this success. Is it necessary for our leaders to push themselves this hard for our team to be successful?

Upon further reflection, I wanted to address the work-life balance you're talking about. This of course is not FIRST's responsibility. It is something that everyone needs to work out for themselves. A team's culture and your role within the team will have a lot to do with how much pressure you face from FRC.

Beyond that, it's been my experience that working in STEM fields can get super competitive, particularly in an educational setting. There is a lot of ego tied up with how quickly, how devotedly, and how thoroughly one groks <insert favorite STEM subject here>. IMO this attitude can be quite discouraging to certain personality types, even though it may provide drive to other personality types. Some of the worst tolls it can take are:
* poor work-life balance
* unhealthily unrealistic achievement expectations
* insulation from peers driven by professional jealousy
* valuing outcomes over process

Thankfully FIRST seems to be less prone to this but it is not immune. You see it when students, mentors, and volunteers sacrifice basic needs and relationships to keep a team or an event going. You see it in unfounded accusations of cheating towards high achieving teams. You see it when teams are more interested in banners than in their students becoming passionate and healthy people.

The C in FRC is for competion. Sometimes we lose track of why we're competing. It's not supposed to be about ego. Competition is supposed to be a carrot to drive learning and practicing skills. No one should have to put a whole team's season on their back. And, should you find yourself there, there is no shame in setting reasonable boundaries, even if it means lowering the team's expectations. There will be disappointment but dealing with disappointment is also part of life.

Originally Posted by jijiglobe

Also... Airplanes aside, some people were throwing legitimately dangerous things onto Einstein (someone threw a large paper shuriken made out of several sheets of paper that narrowly missed someone in our pit crew. From the height it was thrown, it could have easily hurt someone really badly). Can FIRST please do something about the paper airplane situation?

The venue at Worlds is so big I think teams need to self enforce this. I find it very rude when people are throwing things, especially during or between matches or when someone is at the podium. Much worse if it's something that could actually hurt someone (did we leave safety in the pit?)

Maybe it would help if FIRST had an area set up dedicated to people to flying paper airplanes. Maybe a contest for who can fly furthest?

[Sperkowsky]

I should mention that the op's team goes to an extremely high pressure elite high school in NYC. The work load there is probably 4-5 times or more the work load anyone is used to.

That said I wonder why he does have so much responsibility. Their team is gigantic. Perhaps the issue isn't frc being too strenuous but rather that there needs to be better delegation of responsibilities.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by jweston

Upon further reflection, I wanted to address the work-life balance you're talking about. This of course is not FIRST's responsibility. It is something that everyone needs to work out for themselves. A team's culture and your role within the team will have a lot to do with how much pressure you face from FRC.

To an extent I disagree:
FIRST certainly does things that can drive consequences to teams and that are well within their control, in fact, in some cases only FIRST can control these things:

The 6 week build season.
The times at events.
The way events operate.
Bag & Tag.

All of these things are directly the responsibility of FIRST and only FIRST.
That said a person can make this much worse for themselves easily.

As someone that has routinely watched interest in FRC evaporate over the expectations it brings along: I don't worry too much that FIRST seems dead-set on maintaining the status quo. Like any situation these decisions cause a trade off with these choices they drive and that creates limits. FRC will be bound by these limits and it's not for me to judge if that's good or bad. FRC still drives value as it is.

The issue, I think, is that as teams try to break the limits of what FRC is, there is an exponential curve and the closer to straight up at the end you get, the more unrealistic the restrictions on FRC become except in a very specific set of circumstances. There are definitely aspects of FRC, in particular among the FIRST competitions, that favor a strong year round educational setting beyond simply FRC itself. If one tries to cram that education into just the FRC package it will become unworkable at some point without an increasingly unlikely set of circumstances existing. Therefore I have found that sometimes teams are more successful if they concentrate less on more education within the FRC construct and more on the design of their robot even if they resort to largely hand tools.

In the end, where we agree, is that you need to do what is right for you:
If FRC is causing you pain then it's time to re-evaluate whether you can align to the limits of FRC.
If one can't - don't expect FRC to adapt you - over 20 years I've discovered that FRC, when confronted with problems, has gotten just big enough that it can take far more than voting and even evidence to get alteration in direction.
To some extent this inertia is logical: FRC wants to grow and thrive but it can't do that if it breaks with the status quo too much, or else FIRST will make the mixture for success hard to determine even for the veteran teams.

Written by me, speaking for me, as someone with 20+ years of experience with FRC in particular, getting close to 10 years of experience with FLL and 2 years of FTC. Keep FRC11/FRC193 out of this <- it is not wrong to talk about the limits of a system even a system called FIRST.

[jweston]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

To an extent I disagree:
FIRST certainly does things that can drive consequences to teams and that are well within their control, in fact, in some cases only FIRST can control these things:

The 6 week build season.
The times at events.
The way events operate.
Bag & Tag.

This is true. However, I believe that the time limits and access to robots is meant to keep a lid on the ever-escalating desire for teams to pour even more time and resources into FRC. Whether or not you or I believe FIRST's limits are having the desired effect is another story.

As you noted, FIRST does not, and in some cases cannot, limit other inequities such as access to facilities, tools, experienced mentors, or a school system with a strong STEM program. Teams that have less access often find themselves trying to make the difference up in effort. As it is, there are teams that find legal loopholes in the time limits and still end up meeting 20+ hours a week through competition season. And it works. If you lack the theoretical knowledge to design a mechanism, you can usually figure it out through a lot of trial and error. If you don't have sophicated tools to rapidly fabricate high precision parts, you can use cruder tools much more slowly, probably taking multiple attempts.

We all know the teams who win banners year after year after year. I don't expect it's because they are inherently brighter or that they work harder than everyone else. It's more likely these are teams who are blessed to have some kind of knowledge-based, service, and/or material advantage. And I don't blame them at all. But this imbalance ends up putting tremendous pressure on the teams who are competing with them. In order to even have a chance at some kind of recognition, they have to throw everything they've got and then some into build and competition. Even then, they still may not get it.

I can see how diffiicult it must be for FIRST balance a level playing field versus allowing teams to use their unique circumstance to reach their potential. Someone much smarter than me will have to figure out how to solve inequity.

All I meant by one's work-life balance not being FIRST's responsibility is that work-life balance should be taken in a greater context than FIRST. For all things in life, we evaulate the effort, prioritize its meaning to us, and make choices. How you choose to value FRC, how much effort you choose to give it, and how that impacts your time and energy elsewhere is strictly up to you.

[Lij2015]

As someone who threw their life at a team my Junior and Senior years of high school (my 2nd and 3rd years respectively on the team) I can attest that it was a lot of time and a lot of commitment. But I loved every moment of it!

Would I have had more time to study and do homework had I not been on an FRC team that pulled 9 hours in weekdays and a 9 hour Saturday during build season? Absolutely yes, but knowing how I feel about school and always have felt about it I almost would've certainly just used that time to play video games and hangout with friends and put the same amount of work in.

[IronicDeadBird]

Anybody else generally gain weight during build season?

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

Anybody else generally gain weight during build season?

You know in college I took a class called: "Stress management through exercise"

I have often thought it might be wise to engage in exercise at least once a day as part of FIRST activities.
If one can justify pushing this hard, why not accept that this body and mind are linked.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/exerc...s-scott-lister

Years ago I walked with a cane because I hurt myself moving a very large printer.
I never got proper physical therapy because my employer ran interference.
It took 1 week before I could walk.
1 year before I wasn't periodically in a bad pain.
2 years before I only really dealt with pain in the morning and when lifting things badly.
3 years before random lifting couldn't cause spasms.
5 years later sometimes I had to walk hunched over in the morning.

Finally this year I got physical therapy at my expense and with some simple targeted exercises I am much better.
It's worth it to spend that few minutes even if you don't have chronic pain.

I think of weight gain as your body's way of planning for extremely unstable situations: missed meals, lower quality food, broken sleep patterns, longs periods of unusual activity.
Considering I weigh 300lbs at 6'3" and have weighed at least 240lbs since I was 14 and I've been working since I was 10: that should probably say something about doing crazy things, sitting around doing them and body weight.