I have come to realize that an important element of safety is often ignored: the intese time stress and pressure to perform in robotics, specifically affecting disabled members, but stressful and challenging for everyone. So i thought i’d make a space to have a chat about it.
If you don’t have personal experience with a chronic illness you probably have no clue what it’s like so to start with, i’m gonna talk about my experience with my disease and robotics. I have a condition called (big words incoming) post-viral myalgic encephalomyelitis. (If you’ve heard of long covid, it’s basically the same thing as the ME/CFS long covid subset except triggered by a different virus). In my case, part of what triggered it was a “fun” combo of overcommiting myself, autism burnout, and trying to return to doing All The Things too quickly, so the effects on the body of trying to do too much is something i’m reminded of daily. In terms of my personal life, this has dictated shifts in how i do things to try and manage my workload (going to college early so i can schedule classes in a way that allows sleeping in) manage my pain and energy (my arms are less affected than my legs so I am fortunate enough to be a manual wheelchair user, at least until i get worse, and i own a shower chair now). In terms of robotics, this has manifested mainly as my body forcing me to stop because I am a stubborn idiot who still goes to competitions even though I spend 95% of my time stuck lying in bed most of the time, so i have had leadership standup meetings that turned into laying on the high school floor meetings and have had to leave competitions early because of migraines. TLDR, i try to do stuff and my body is like “oh no you don’t!” and I have to make compromises.
FRC teams, especially high ranking ones, can have a culture of intensity that can be tricky to manage if you don’t want to eat, sleep, breathe robots. Or even if you do want to, but you have a disability that has other ideas. I would like to discuss some things teams can do to allow students options for giving a safe amount of effort for them.
I mean, I’ve made dumb, unsafe decisions before. I have been found a robotics meeting a couple of hours after getting back from the hospital from a bad allergic reaction to sedation (feeling super wacky from the sedative), and have been at competitions while actively in status migrainosis (“i will go to the emergency room after the competition, it’s fine”). I would like other people to not have to make those bad decisions. It’s really hard not too when you care about robotics and your team and feel responsible to be there.
Anyway, thoughts? What can teams do to make sure people are giving their best and not their unsafe overexertion effort? I love the energy and passion people bring to the table but we need to figure out how to set up a culture of taking a break is okay. (My current team i should note does this pretty well btw, i don’t want anyone to think im criticizing them, just trying to open up a convo about overall frc culture)
How open with your team are you about what they should expect from you, and about how it affects you?
It seems like you’re pretty open with them, judging by the fact that you’ve made a CD post about it, but generally I think open communication is the key to managing expectations and workloads.
I will try to input my view as an event organizer - if I know people coming to the event have certain conditions, I will do whatever I can within my power to mitigate those conditions to make the event comfortable and fun for them - example: we have a deaf team here in Türkiye, so for them, I try to make every last bit of the ceremonies here scripted, and in writing and displayed on the screens so that they are able to follow what is going on. Guest speakers give me their speeches ahead of time, etc so I can have them on screen. (This has the side benefit of also making it easy for our many foreign teams to follow what’s going on, as not only do we do this, but we do it in two languages)
If I don’t know that there is a need for that however, I can’t do anything about it. My impression of humanity is that for the most part people try to be accommodating in whatever way they can, as long as they are informed, so just make sure people are informed, and set expectations accordingly
I’m curious what other people will say here, and what I can learn from others here too, so I’m eager to read others’ comments.
You’re correct in the assumption that I am unusually up front with my team about my needs (I see it as a social justice project, everything i explain about my disability is something the next person doesn’t have to explain), but not everyone is as comfortable as me about advocating for themselves and the responsibility ideally shouldn’t fall to the individual.
For example, most comp venues ive been at have bleachers that can have a small section collapsed to make wheelchair accessible seating, but usually you have to know to email ahead of time about it. Maybe it should be a default to have one wheelchair accessible section at every event. Also, imo teams should discourage crazy hours during build season, it shouldn’t be individual people having to say “this is too much for me i have to leave”.
You make a good point that robotics effects some people much differently than others. I’m what I’llLimelight, an integrated vision coprocessor call highly sensitive and some actions of others are potentially physically very painful or difficult for me. At my advanced age I realize I have to take care of myself.
Do we need to protect the students or are they on their own to take care of themselves? I suggest there is a wide range of possibilities. For example, one student’s crazy bad hours might be another student’s crazy good hours. I’d guess wrong on telling them what they should be feeling and do.
I think my team is sensitive to excesses and has a fairly small number for the minimum number of hours to be considered for travel with the team. Grades are also monitored for too low (high school team and the coaches are their teachers so we can do that). We emphasize that school work comes first and team members can even do their school work at robotics if necessary. A student’s statement that they can’t come or will be late because of homework, band, tennis, golf, etc. is not questioned and we have to work around that.
I agree all of us should be aware of others needs, limitations, capabilities and accommodate almost all of them but let’s not try too hard to dictate what those needs are and let the team members try to speak for themselves and we listen to what they say.
[My wife’s late husband was severely handicapped for years and the horror stories abound. The handicap parking space at the library is where the snow is piled because those people shouldn’t go out in the winter. Similarly there is no ramp to the church and besides ramps are ugly. The thoughtlessness knows no bottom. I wish you the best in your advocacy.]
I know we stress throughout the year (as in, it’s stressed by a mentor to the entire team at least once a week during build season) that, as students, they have a strict order of priorities to worry about, and robotics is not at the top of the list. The order we stress is:
Health
School
Then Robotics
Yes, we want everyone involved as much as they can be, but if you’re stick, stay home and take care of yourself so you can come back at 100% - plus, being sick in the shop could quickly turn into a safety issue. If you have school work, you need to get it done, and you need to prioritize it above robotics. It does no one any good if you spend all evening at robots, get home late, and then put off going to bed because you have school work - that lack of sleep has a huge negative impact on your health!
As mentors, we stress this to students and let them handle it - with the caveat that we have eyes and ears, and can often tell when someone is struggling, so we will recommend they take a night off if we feel they need it, or tell them to get out of the shop and work on that paper that’s due tomorrow instead. We’ve had students show up to a meeting and said “nope, call you’re parents, you’re sick”.
We also encourage students and parents to communicate with us, to let us know how things are going. While we can often tell when someone is struggling, it’s not always apparent. But a short email from a parent that says “just wanted to let you know what our daughter is dealing with right now…” can go along way, and at least puts us on higher alert to make sure they’re doing ok, and lets us help manage the workload the team throws at them.
Robotics can (and does) become an obsession for many students. Part of growing and learning if figuring out how to manage that so you can still be successful and healthy in the other parts of your life too. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your parents or mentors to ask for help if you need it!
Students take breaks whenever stressed / overworked.
Students take an actual lunch break / dinner break.
Students in loud environments (not in the pits) have the option to use headphones or ear plugs.
Students eat food, drink water, and take care of any other needs.
Students can work on homework at meetings (if needing a safe space to work) and receive help from attending teachers / peers / mentors, if wanted.
I will also say that when students / parents register for the team, we include this question:
“Is there anything to know about your child that will help us work with them or keep them safe?”
This question saves us a lot of time and helps us know right from the beginning in a private way what students need / what students need to avoid.
The last thing I will mention, while attendance is a small factor in going to competition, it doesn’t decide anything. Mentors will vouch for students that do work from home or can only show up for a few hours but contribute a lot, show positive attitude, and are willing to help out.
Overall, my team tries our best, but we are always trying to do better. I have people in my life with chronic illness and it hurts to not be able to do enough for them to enjoy everything freely. Thank you for sharing you experiences in FIRST.
In general, if you have a disability that is not obvious – you’re not walking around with a white cane, you’re not in a wheelchair, etc… – then you (or your parents) need to make sure that disability is communicated to the adults associated with the team. If there are any accommodations that need to be made for your disability, those should be discussed with those adults.
It may be that a team’s culture has some unhealthy attributes – a propensity of working until late in the night is an example. And, as somebody who is especially susceptible to the effects of that unhealthy culture, you are in a good place to advocate for changes to that culture. But, “crazy hours” are something that comes with the territory. There’s no way to build a good competition robot without a lot of work.
One thing we do is have two kinds of members, “full” and “associate”. We recognize that not everyone can or wants to put in 20+ hours/week in Jan-Apr. As I amAndyMark sure is common, many of our students are high achievers in multiple areas (AP, Varsity sports, All-State Music, Olympiad, Debate, Drama, etc). the associate role allows them to be a part of the team with less time commitment (for whatever reason).
As a (4H) community team we do not have access to our student’s grades, but we make it as clear as we can to both students and parents that robotics comes after self-care, family, and school. If you can’t make something, we just ask that you let us know. Same thing for our (esp college) mentors.
[rant] My wife had a temp permit for about a year as she was having her knees fixed – before that she and I had no idea how abused handicap parking is (because I would never dream of using it). Completely appalling listening to them justify their misuse.
I cannot force students to take care of hygiene… However, I encourage good hygiene without making it shameful or embarrassing. I always put on the recommended packing list for competition deodorant + other items.
My mom had one for a few months due to injury. This was during competition season. Don’t get me started–the SHORT version is that ADA requires certain things, and some venues “comply”–that is, technically they have accommodation, but using it is massively inconvenient for the one who wishes to use it. 1/4 of the way around a (sports arena) venue to get to the elevator, which is a freight elevator, with an operator who happens to be on break, “oh, you can take the ramp, right?”–that sort of deal.
So yeah… ask ahead, and at least get information on items related to your accommodations. If it’s obvious ahead of time that it’s going to be pretty bad, you do have the option not to go… or you could take the “dude, seriously?” option and call them out on ADA and getting things more up to spec.
This is the ideal priority list. Do you find that your students are in support of it? It’s fantastic to have supportive mentors but on a previous team i’d still have individual students be like “ugh you’re never here you do nothing for the team” whenever i’d take a mentor encouraged break
I don’t think you necessarily need to disclose the condition, but if you don’t tell anyone you need an accommodation and it’s not obvious it’s going to be difficult to provide that. A culture that will accept “Hey, I need this” without question can definitely be cultivated, but somewhere along the line I think there is going to need to be a notification that you need something.
Also, it probably is still important that someone on the team is aware of anyone of the team’s disabilities just like other medical info in case something happened and that person needed treatment.
That’s exactly what I amAndyMark trying to advocate for teams to make a part of the culture.
In some cases yes, but it’s a spectrum. I’m a fainting risk so I definitely talk to every mentor and teacher so they know what to expect, but someone who has a disability that just makes them feel crappy if they stand for too long has the option to just in the moment be like “hey im a bit tired, gonna sit” and doesn’t need to tell people about their condition.
I amAndyMark not suggesting that you should be forced to disclose your private medical information. But, if you want your disability to be accommodated, then the people who would provide that accommodation need to be aware of the need for it. It is not reasonable or practical to expect that every team change its operations just in case somebody with any particular disability shows up.
You have a postviral syndrome. Other students have light or noise sensitivities, ADHD (which can show up in a variety of different ways), or any of a number of other disabilities. Teams cannot reasonably function if they have to be prepared for all of them.
Note that this isn’t particular to robotics teams – in education, accommodations are specified in IEPs and 504 Plans, both of which require that the disability be identified. In employment, your employer is not required to provide you with an accommodation unless the employer knows (or reasonably should know) about your disability.
I founded 827, which was the California School for the Deaf (Fremont)'s team while I was working there–alas, it did not long survive my absence. I also helped found the Rochester School for the Deaf’s team (3162), but it was long-distance for me and they didn’t last long.
Regardless, I have some experience in this arena if you want to send me a DM with any questions.
They don’t need to be. Teams just need a culture where “i need a break, see you on monday” is okay.
Most disabled people, particularly invisibly disabled people, do something called ‘self-accomodating’ already: they will have a fidget ready, emergency snacks in their bag, and go to the part of the room with chairs automatically. To be prepared for every disability teams just need a culture of letting people do their thing.
For some accommodations like earbuds you might need a quick talk with a mentor but “i have adhd can i listen to earbuds” is an unnecessary venture into private info if the student doesn’t want to disclose. Something on the year start paperwork that says “if you have a 504 or IEP and would like to mention any accomodations you may need at robotics please list:” is enough to establish accommodations and is in compliance with privacy regulations.
If a student will be taking meds during meetings or is a seizure/fall risk or anything of that sort, disclosure to a mentor is very necessary. But anyone who’s accomodations will only pop up a few times over the season and can self accomodate (e.g. they don’t need anything from the team other than people letting them take care of themselves) have no reason to say what disability they have unless they want to.
The team im on understands this perfectly as we started to have an attendance requirement this year that one has to meet in order to travel to comp with the team but if you arent feeling well on a meeting day or if you have to work a shift at the time of our meetings as long as you communicate with our head coach. he will understand and not count it as an “absence” which is very nice for a lot of people on our team who have jobs and sometimes have to work a shift during meetings
and have had to leave competitions early because of migraines. TLDR, i try to do stuff and my body is like “oh no you don’t!” and I have to make compromises.
not to hijack this thread but I’d love more info- I’m looking into starting one at WA State Deaf in a few years.