Burnout and Preseason

I am currently a captain on my team and I am just burnt out. Between college applications and school, robotics is putting a lot of stress on me. My team can only meet once a week for 2 hours during the preseason and it is just not enough time to get things done. It took me one and a half months to teach the new members how to build an electrical board. I am the only captain that has been present at every meeting and when one of the other two doesn’t show up, I am in charge of that sub-team. I am trying my hardest to give my team members a good FIRST experience, but with only about 3 people who can teach new members and 30 people to teach, I can’t do it. There are a lot more problems with the team, but these are the big ones right now.

I hope that I am not the only one that has felt like this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I kind of know how you feel. I am also a senior, and with that I knew school workload would dramatically increase, as well as scholarship applications and University applications. I spent like every waking second last year doing FRC but it’s crucial to understand that sometimes other things are more important, which is why I barely show up these days, it’s just not a good idea for me to go. Maybe my team has more teaching capabilities, but my position has been filled with the student I worked closely with last year who is a grade below me and is able to provide the time to give good lessons each week.

Talk to your mentors and even teammates and let them know how you feel, see if you can work something out with them.

I’d also like to add that junior year I went every single day, whereas senior year I committed only to coming 2-3 days a week (~3 hours/day). I actually found that I was able to get the same amount of work done (maybe even more) in the smaller amount of time because I would focus better knowing that I only had the 2-3 days to get things done. Also school didn’t suffer. So that’s good.

TL;DR; sometimes spending less time on something achieves more.

What’s your mentor situation, and have you tried reaching out to other teams? (Or LA Robotics/SCRRF?)

Every team is different, so it’s hard to give advice… but I would say it’s OK to fail (in FIRST - take care of school first!). If you say “I can’t take that on right now”, it puts pressure on the team, as a whole, to step up. Delegation helps develop other leaders within the team and makes your job easier. Letting go, stepping back a little and letting others step up, can be the hardest thing a dedicated student can do. But it’s also one of the most valuable skills to learn.

All I can say is that you are doing fine. Try your best, do not put too much effort into a team while you need to focus on yourself. It is a team for a reason. If the output of your season is not what the team wanted, then the team as a whole must act together to improve. This absolutely includes mentors, teachers, parents, and other school faculty.

The burden does not fall on you. You are doing fine.

I had a similar issue with new member training when I was a senior.
To help with the time crunch, try and find “homework” for new members to do outside of training sessions. There are plenty of resources such as videos, presentations, and articles (simbotics’ website is great for this) that help teach big concepts of design and robotics. Even if you don’t make it mandatory, having those resources available will really help new members.

In terms of trying to maximize your teaching ability, one good option is to figure out a project that each new member will fabricate. You can demo each step (or a series of steps at a time) to the whole group, then split them up into groups of 2 or 3 so they can help each other while they work. If you don’t have the material resources, you may be able to find something that you could build for your community that you can get a sponsorship for (but it may be a bit late for that mid November). If you need to teach skills one on one, find some project that the rest of the group can work on while you teach. One thing that requires relatively little effort from teachers is giving groups a component or an entire robot, and having them take it apart and put it back together. You can also have them discuss or ask questions about the component. For example, if you give them a gear box, why is did you choose that gear ratio? What is that used for? What motor would you attach it to? You can also have them practice the design process in small groups together- it doesn’t even have to be about robotics, and they don’t have to build anything. It’s good to have them practice working together and bouncing ideas of of each other.

Now, about your fellow captains. You can’t make them show up to work sessions, but you can encourage them to leave plans for new members for sessions they can’t attend (ideally plans that don’t require a lot of effort from you).

I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, but college apps are the one of most important part of your life right now. You can’t force your new members to have a great experience, and you can’t force your teammates to be enthusiastic. Try your best, but don’t let robotics become a major stressor right now.

Hope this helps!

This is a really, really good point. I’m a junior in college now, so I haven’t been a student on a team since Stronghold, but I remember feeling all of the same feelings. (And I feel all of the same things as a mentor now, even.)

Delegate. Talk to your co-captains and tell them they either need to step up, or something’s gotta give… Because your future is the 1 priority. Make sure to get those applications in and keep those grades up.

But the best thing we can say is: take a deep breath. You’re gonna be okay, the team is gonna be okay, and it’s all gonna be okay.

Mentor situation is not good. We have had mentors in the past, but we only recently got one with FRC experience. We have trouble keeping mentors given the location of our school. Mentors are usually parents that will leave once their kid graduates. In terms of reaching out to other teams, we have a good relationship with another team, but they are not close by.

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Shoot me a PM. Let’s find you some local mentors on other teams to reach out to and help you.

I have given resources to new members, but I have yet to see if they have actually gone and learned something from them. The culture at our school has resulted in less kids who are really inspired and interested enough to continue their learning at home. I have given them things to independently work on in groups during meetings, but more than half of them didn’t do it because I wasn’t there to watch them the entire time.

I don’t know how to approach the situation with my other captains. Both of them sometimes have other commitments that conflict, which I have no problem with, but they are against having an agenda ready before each meeting. One captain has seemed to have given up on teaching and the other started late, but at least he is doing something. My relationship with my other captains is not the strongest and I can only rely on the lead of my subteam to get things done. I have had conflicts in the past with my other captains on how the team should be run. I feel like it is going to be last season all over again with me having to teach during build season.

The coach has told the other captains this before, but they don’t want to listen. They do not have a high opinion of our coach because they do not see eye to eye on multiple things. My good relationship with my coach and faculty is one of the only things keeping this team going. If the three captains were to leave, the team would not be able to function.

The attitude of current and past seniors has contributed to many team members slacking off and not wanting to learn. It is difficult to separate those who want to learn from those who don’t during the preseason because we don’t meet enough. We can’t just kick a lot of people off the team since the school treats us like a club and cuts can only happen if the student is a problem for other students.

Thanks for the advice.

Ditto. I’m a little closer than Akash (by about the width of the US)–some of you guys have probably talked to me in person at the LA Regional in the last two seasons.