Limits on Team Hours

[EricH]

I found my limits in H.S. I fell behind in schoolwork, pretty drastically in some cases, and I had several extracurriculars. Long story short, I had to cut back and add some discipline. This included showing up to class when the instructor knew, from seeing me at the L.A. Regional on practice day, that I had a robotics competition on a class day, and would have given an excused absence. (I was also late getting to the event the next day, due to a different class.)

I know from that experience that I can't juggle more than about 3-4 major projects at any given time. Back then, it was school, robotics, and Scouts that stayed; sports and the school yearbook fell by the wayside. In college, I quit playing with the soccer club after 2 seasons, not because I wasn't playing but because I needed more schoolwork time (and another team--Aero Design--was taking more and more time).

Now, someone else might think "3-4 projects/activities? That's nothing! I do twice that in the offseason!" I remind you who may think that that you are not me and I am not you. That's probably a good thing, otherwise we wouldn't be able to come up with different crazy designs to do the same thing...

[Edoc'sil]

I put about 240 hours at school, and about another 50 outside of school. I would say see if you can set the bar at 250, you can't really put in much more then that. Or if the do keep it lower be a little creative (or subtractive) when i comes to logging in your hours where ever they are recorded. It is easier to agree with an idiot and do what you want behind his back, then it is to explain to him why he is an idiot.

[ratdude747]

does your school do grade checks? our school does and any robotics sudent earing less than a C in any class gets banned from excued ansences for trips, and less than a D gets you barred from meetings until the grades are up.

that way, if you are spending too much time on robotics not doing HW, you get a lame grade and get barred. trust me, it is a good incentive.

maybe you could try our system?

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

does your school do grade checks? our school does and any robotics sudent earing less than a C in any class gets banned from excued ansences for trips, and less than a D gets you barred from meetings until the grades are up.

that way, if you are spending too much time on robotics not doing HW, you get a lame grade and get barred. trust me, it is a good incentive.

maybe you could try our system?

My mother is a high school chemistry teacher, and mentors a team. If a teacher tells her that a student is being delinquent, they have to rectify the situation before they can work on the robot. I've even seen her force a student to finish late homework during a build session and turn it in to her before they can go work on the robot. I think it is effective largely because my mom can embarrass anyone. ((<3 Mom))

I think this type of restriction is much more effective than a time limit. I think working on the robot can be a very tasty carrot, and being kicked out after a number of hours can be an arbitrary stick.

[EricH]

I easily spent 200+ hours in the shop during build when I was a student; I'd have to see if any of my time logs are still around my house for an exactish number. Others spent more time.

Now, where the administration is coming from: They have a policy that limits time on extracurriculars. You guys are exceptions for now. Policies don't like exceptions as a general rule. So, they're working on limiting the exception. They're probably also a little concerned about health, grades, etc.

There is also a valid reason to limit time in the shop: You need time for family, homework, sleep, etc., regardless of whether you think you do or not. My college recently implemented a policy on their engineering teams: Nobody in the lab between 2AM and 7:30AM, or something like that. This was to keep us all sane. Could it be bent? Yes, near competition. But only if you were doing well in school, health, etc., and weren't doing it regularly. Teams are actually more relaxed now, and doing better work.

What I would suggest is offer a counter-proposal: Lab open 3-7 on school nights (6:30 is good, but see if you can get an extra half-hour to clean up), open to 10 on weekends, don't restrict student time yet (emphasis on yet, because we'd like to get a fairer estimate of time). Track every student's time in the lab for this year. Time off-site designing and programming and such like doesn't count, but it would be a good idea to monitor that also. At the end of the next build cycle, total up the hours and come up with an average and a grand total. Round up to the nearest 25 for ease of tracking, and set that as the base limit. Do not count time working on homework in the lab--homework is important and not robotics stuff. (And if a student is being unproductive, i.e. messing around, count that time not at all.)

Request variances at the start of the school year based on how many students are reported on the team; that is, we know it takes about this many man-hours to complete a robot, we have this many students available, therefore, this is how many hours a given student can be expected to put in. Repeat the time-gathering every year to get better data; for example, a one year you might build a kitbot and the next year you might build unobtainabot that takes 10x as many hours to build, and a straight time-log won't show that.

Also, propose exceptions/extensions that can be applied for: if a lot of help is needed to finish on time, the team should be able to request extra open time, not to go beyond midnight on any given night, for up to two weeks in February. Students should be able to request up to two individual 50-hour extensions towards any time limit provided that they are in good standing. This is to help the robot do well at competition, and thereby show the school favorably. (Robot not do so well at competition, school/sponsors might not look quite so great.)

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by hg273

I was wondering if other teams have statistics about the average and median amount of hours committed by team members over the build season. Anecdotes would work too. What I'm looking for are things that I, and my team, can take to our administration to see if we can amend the policy before it goes into effect for next year's build season. Also, if anyone has any past experience with situations similar to this, anything would be greatly appreciated.

This probably isn't what you want to hear, but:

I think it all depends on what you want to do. In 2008 we built a robot that could probably compete with the Space Shuttle for most complicated system ever built. [video] I spent about 170ish hours at the school... and I was only around for 3 weeks of build! The core students and mentors (12ish) also averaged 40+ hours. Our two lead mentors were somewhere north of that. In short, we built a totally sweet robot, but we totally burned out our team.

In 2009, we only met 3 times a week for 4 hours for the first 3 weeks, 4 times a week for weeks 4-5, and daily during week 6. We put in significantly fewer hours, yet we were *more* competitive than we were in 2008!

Limits are not bad things, after all "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

[goldenglove002]

If the issue is about grades, then there should be a policy limiting work if your grades are bad (to not punish people who have no grade issue). If the issue is the members having a well balanced life, they should be allowed to determine how they spend their time when it comes to extra cirricular vs social. That is NOT something that school administrators should try control.

I'm biased, I put a ton of work into the team and wouldn't survive on a limit. But I don't really see where a cap is a good idea when put up against some other options.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by hg273

While there are many things we can do to distribute the hours, distributing tasks, training more new members etc. there are certain things that require some key members to put in large amounts of time.

There's a lot of promise in this statement. Identifying where your team can work to improve and become more efficient. It is also reflective of a mature approach to helping resolve some of the concerns regarding the new limits on time. There are teams all over the world who deal with time limits and constraints that they haven't imposed on themselves. Receiving the KoP later than other teams - weather that impacts on the build - problems that arise with which the team must contend with. Having a system developed and in place to deal with situations and emergencies that arise - is good practice. Having to develop the system for the situation or emergency that is impacting the team during the build, is difficult but has a huge learning curve that comes with it. Your team can spend time now addressing how you will manage the time next season. You view the new plan as one of limitations and restrictions but what if you look at it as opportunity to develop in areas of time management and organization? You could write down your timeline, showing how build has progressed during the 6 week build period in the past. Then develop a new timeline projecting how it will work in the upcoming season. Make notes and then schedule an appointment with your administrator to talk about and discuss the impact on the build for the team. This would help develop communications between the team and the administration and it would also reflect the maturity of the team leadership in dealing with change. The cup is half full.

Jane

[hallk]

I put in a lot of time in high school. I used to stay until 2am some weeknights. There were some overnights when preparing for pre-ship events. I was also taking a full load of AP classes, working and playing varsity basketball. So I had a lot to do but somehow (lots of Mountain Dew) I got it all done successfully.
Honestly, I think I wouldn't have learned as much if someone had capped my hours. I certainly wouldn't know about time or project management.

The team I graduated from no longer has as insane hours. Now meetings end before 11pm. The team has grown so the work is more spread out. Overall, they meet for fewer hours but are still a successful team, in fact they could be considered even more successful now.
This was done by doing work outside of meetings and making the team more efficient. There are lots of emails and other communication messages so that everyone knows what needs to get done before the meeting starts. CAD has also become very important and helps save design time.

With every team I work with, Fridays and Sundays are off unless something horrible has happened then we might meet for a few hours on Friday.

I think it would be difficult to meet with those times because of them availability of mentors. It might also be hard if the students need to work on things after school. My teams meet from about 5-9 but students can come early to work on homework, eat, CAD, etc.

I'm surprised to say that based on the average number of hours we would be able to function with those limits. However, I know that without the people who went over the average then the team wouldn't be as successful.
21 students worked an average of 15 hours during the pre-season. 9 mentors worked an average of 28 hours. There were 12 pre-season meetings. This time includes work done outside of meetings for students but not for mentors. The reason the mentors have a higher average is because some of the students only came to a meeting or two.
17 students worked an average of 85 hours during the build season. 15 mentors worked an average of 72 hours during the build season. The students worked an average of 40 hours after the robot shipped. The mentors worked an average of 29 hours after the robot shipped. This time includes work done outside of meetings for students but not for mentors.
I think I need to re-run these numbers because they seem low.

[JamesCH95]

When I was a student in the past I would put in 250-300 hours per build season, or 40-50+ hours a week. Many of us at that work output level sacrificed health and/or grades to do it.

This last season, as a coach, out team had more restricted hours including no work on Sundays, and the most dedicated students on our relatively small team put in a little under 200 hours. I think that a 200 hour limit is not unreasonable (admit it, your health and/or grades suffer at a 300hour/season work output).

A time cap will help you keep your sanity and work more effectively. How many of those 300 hours were high-productivity hours? A cut-back in hours might actually improve your teams overall productivity by allowing for things like relaxation, real meals, and sleep.

Good luck.

Edit: having read your mentor's post it seems as if the time cap won't severely impact your team's overall performance. I think you'll do just fine.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Dale

This year there were complaints from the faculty that robotics was having too big an impact on the academic performance of several of our students. That triggered a review of the program and hence the caps being discussed.

Then the caps are a good idea.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Then the caps are a good idea.

I must heartily disagree. Why haven't the concerned faculty of the students whose grades have slipped contacted the parents?

Why aren't the parental responsibilities even mentioned here?

Why are we relying on the school faculty to make rules like this, rather than relying on good decision making and bringing the parents into the equation?

This is a 'hot button' issue for me, where instead of going the route of addressing the problem, a broad over-reaching general rule is put in place that could very likely affect people whom don't have an actual problem. I would MUCH rather set up a system where the faculty sends a letter home and to the mentor of the team letting them know of the issue so it can be handled individually.

For reference, we meet Monday for 4 hours, Wednesday for 4 hours, Thursday for 4 hours, and Saturday for 8. That's 20 hours a week for 5 or 6 weeks. Students are constantly reminded that if they have homework, that comes first, and we have a room next door where they can go DO their homework then come back to robotics when they've finished.

[IKE]

I like Tom's line of thinking, with regards to personal and parental responsibility, but I am ok with oversight as well.

I tend to side though with the school on this one. For instance the A/Bs you could have had are now D's (which can be improved to a B/Cs, but you will not get the A/Bs. Once the grades have slipped, and the student is kicked off the team (academic probation), it seems like a double whammy where a soft limit could have been in place. (Better learn to write a funny song to get into MIT.)

Maybe a good compromise would be to establish hours in a reasonable manner with a discussion. Instead of a hard limit, have several soft limits. If you exceed X hours a week, a call will go to your parents to verify that they are engaged in what is going on. If you excede Y hours in a month, an email will be sent to your teachers asking about your performance.

I like math so let's look at it from some numbers:

7x24=168 hrs/week. Assume students are in school 8am-3pm= 7hrsx5=35hrs. Assume 1hr for prep (shower and travel)=5-15 (10 avg.), Assume 7 hrs of sleep average=49
168-35-10-49 = 74 hours of available time. Throw in 1 hour of homework each night and you are down to 69 total hours per week for life outside of school and sleeping. So far we have not included the 3 T's of being a Teenager (TV, Tech (games or texting), and Talking on the phone).

We will call this 69 hours "life" as it is the timeframe where most students would say having a "life" happens.

For a 6 week period:
60 = 10/week which is typically a part time job like bagging groceries or a paper route. You are not around enough to understand how to run the store, but enough to do a meaningful job well. 10/69=14% of "life"
90 = 15/week Still part-time. Not a critical roll, but similar to game and practice schedule for many sports. This is roughly our "minimum" involvement on 33. 15/69=22% of "life"
120 = 20/week As Tom showed, this is a pretty involved student that could/should be able to be quite involved. This could be 4x3hour meetings plus 8 hours on Saturday. This seems like a pretty good goal for someone engaged. 20/69=29% of "life"
150 = 25/week This could be 4x4hour meetings plus 9 hours on Saturday. This is more inline with our "mentor" schedule. We will likely end up putting in more time, but this is typically what we have scheduled. 25/69=36% of "life"
180 = 30/week 30/69=43% of "life"
210 = 35/week many 40/week employees with paid breaks/lunch end up doing about this number of hours as a "Full-time employee". 35/69=51% of "life" (yes over 1/2 of your "life" is FRC for this timeframe)
240 = 40/week "Full-time" employee 40/69=58% of "life"
300 = 50/week average. Likely comes from a 40/week schedule and lots of for a few of the weeks. 50/69=72% of "life"
360 = 60/week 60/69=87% of "life" Your family and friends forget who you are.

210 seems like a reasonable "soft limit" for people to get concerned and start calling teachers/parents. Probably shouldn't be a hard limit, but definitely something to take note of.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I must heartily disagree. Why haven't the concerned faculty of the students whose grades have slipped contacted the parents?[cut for brevity]

First off, how do we know they didn't contact the parents?

I agree with your general opinion that it should be a matter of personal (and parental) responsibility. However, that hasn't succeeded to this point, as some students have been adversely impacted by the time they put in, and weren;t able to handle the responsibility given to them or balancing FIRST and the rest of their life. Rather than having this continue, sometimes it is the responsibility of the school to step in and try and ensure that these failures don't happen. Especially a selective private school with a history and reputation to uphold (such as the one in question).

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I agree with your general opinion that it should be a matter of personal (and parental) responsibility. However, that hasn't succeeded to this point, as some students have been adversely impacted by the time they put in, and weren;t able to handle the responsibility given to them or balancing FIRST and the rest of their life. Rather than having this continue, sometimes it is the responsibility of the school to step in and try and ensure that these failures don't happen. Especially a selective private school with a history and reputation to uphold (such as the one in question).

Blanket policies for all students because a handful can't handle robotics? I'd like to think educational policies should be more individualized than that.