I’ve seen posts regarding limits that might be placed on team member hours, to reduce the risk of burnout or academic decline. I’m dealing, unfortunately, with the opposite. Most of our team members have never been part of a competitive team and don’t seem to comprehend what type of commitment is required. We’re a new team, so we don’t have an established culture.
I would love to see what expectations successful teams have for their members. Any documents that you’d be willing to share would be greatly appreciated. What contributions are expected before, during and after build season? I’ve seen organizational documents that describe various roles, but what agreements are made regarding time and effort?
I’ve seen posts where people have described 150, 200 or 250 hour build seasons. I suspect that if I bring up total hours, people will wrongly claim that they’ve put in that much time, even though by my count, our more active team members have only really put in 30-40 hours of work. Therefore, more descriptive summaries of time and effort would be more helpful. Thanks.
Students on our team are expected to attend build meetings on Tuesdays (2:30pm-9pm), Thursdays (2:30pm-9pm) and Saturdays (8am-3pm) during the build season. That’s 20hrs a week from each student during the build. We also require our new members to come in for a period of time before the build season starts to help prepare them for the build.
Anything beyond the hours listed above are optional for the students however many of our students choose to come in on other days and stay late on the days we are there.
This perfectly describes one of the two part BIG problems we faced as a rookie team this year. We had maybe 10-15 people sign up initially, and then goof off, waste time, and break stuff. Once we put pressure on them to perform and put in time/commitment and actually get some work done, they scattered, leaving maybe 6 people at the most actually working on the robot. This further left us 6 E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D, I know I personally took a toll academically, and everyone else who was working with us was. However I wouldn’t recommend limits on team time, because otherwise we wouldn’t even be done with the chassis by today
My team met Monday to Friday, 4 to 8. We were given about 80 minutes to do homework after school then walk to our build site (off school campus). Towards the end of the season (last month) we started meeting on Saturdays for about 4 hours. There were some members that met on Sunday every once in awhile but I didn’t due to having some sort of social life. Most nights, 4 to 5 of the members (including myself) would get there around 3:30, then wouldn’t leave until maybe 9 or 9:30. Towards the end of the season (and a couple days at the beginning) the 4 of us stayed until 10:30 at least, getting whatever we could done. It sounds pretty sad but we actually seemed to get more work done when there were less of us. Of course towards the end of the season we were at the build site past midnight. We were never told we had to go home and do homework, we were just expected to take care of it. I honestly fell a little behind in one class and am still making it up right now, but most classes I didnt do any worse in academically.
Before/After Build season, our team does Mondays & Wednesdays, from 5:30 - 8:30 PM. These days are used for other things, such as mentoring younger students, designing buttons, etc. Homework is usually permitted halfway through, starting from 7 PM. Full participation is not expected.
During Build Season, more participation is expected. We meet every weekday, Monday - Friday, from 5:30 - 8:30, and Saturdays from 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM. Participation is expected, but if a member does not have 60% participation for Build Season total, they do not have an excused absence for competition season on Thursdays & Fridays.
Doing some quick math, if a member showed up 100% of the time, it would be around 138 hours. Most of the time, that is not the case.
The amount of participation expected is equal for all members. I’ve seen some teams to where the seniors are expected to do a certain amount, juniors another amount, etc.
We met Monday through Friday from about 3:15 to ~5. On Saturday, we would go from 10 til 3ish.
We don’t have any requirements for our members because we have so few of them. On an average day, we would have only 2-3 students. Those students who do show up are very committed to the program which is why we could do fairly well this year compared to past years.
Our team has two shifts a day: 5:30 to 7:00 and 7:00 to 8:30 on weekdays, and two three hour shifts on weekends.
Students come when they feel like it, and can sign up for a maximum of one shift per day. We don’t impose any specific expectations – whether a student comes once a week or every day is up to them. Though we do have a policy that says we won’t allow students to come to competitions if they haven’t been participating, but it’s not too strict it seems.
Out of our ~50 students, a core team of maybe 10 students really step forward and put the time to be dedicated members, while the rest just come whenever with varying degrees of commitment.
This is probably the easiest way to incentivize team members to participate. Our team does this, but to be perfectly honest, we don’t have an issue with most team members wanting to put in hours.
However, we are dealing with a slight issue because our team captain has been present at less than half the meetings throughout the build season. It looks like we might use him as an example, because he should not be getting excused absences for Thursday and Friday when he hasn’t put in the effort across the build season. And he sure as heck isn’t representing our team on Saturday during Alliance Selections if we make it to that point.
My old team had a list of “ten commandments” that all students and adults had to follow.
TEAM 3467 TEN COMMANDMENTS
I. Do Unto Others….Demonstrate Gracious
Professionalism to your teammates, your mentors,
and your competitors.
II. Better safe than run over by a renegade robot.
i.e. When working on the robot
electrical, the power gets shut off. When working on it
mechanically, all electronics are covered with a jacket
or blanket. If people are within 2-3feet of the robot, it
must be disabled.
III. Of those to whom much is given, much is expected.
In other words, lend a hand in teaching, building,
serving, designing or cleaning.
IV. Life is short; show initiative. When in doubt, find out
what’s next on the list!
V. Diversify: in addition to building, have meaningful
participation in outreach or fundraising events each
year.
VI. Communicate. Stay informed daily. Respond
promptly.
VII. I document; therefore, I am.
VIII. Keep it clean—the shop, the robot design, your
behavior, your mouth.
IX. Show up in mind and body. Be on time.
X. When building, think outside the box; when
following team rules, think inside the framework.
Actions have consequences—make them good!
Following up, one thing that you can do as mentors to help with the participation issue is to inspire your students to want to come, that way they won’t have to be required to come. You can do this by incorporating fun activities into each meeting (preferably during meetings where most of the team isn’t busy) and recruiting social, yet skilled mentors who will build good relationships with your students. Training up leaders who are also servants and friends of the students is invaluable to any team. Long story short, if you can make the kids want to show up, they will put in the effort and try to make it to your meetings. I remember that I loved robotics so much I’d come as much as possible – I know that’s not the same for every student but the more you can get the better.
Hope this helps you out. If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me.
Our team has meetings Tuesday and Thursday meetings before build season. Then a few weeks before kickoff we add in Saturdays. During build season we have meetings mon-thurs 5-8, fri 5-9, sat 9:30-4:30, and Sunday 2:30-5:30. At the end of build season we usually end up staying until midnight. Right now we have mon, tues, thurs, sat meetings. All members are not required to come to all meetings- in fact there is no minimum. However, if they want leadership positions and are truly dedicated then they will show up.
To summarize, each student is required to attend ~1 meeting per week during preseason (we meet twice a week and some Saturdays). Though we will probably be re-doing that to be a number of hours during preseason.
During build season freshman must get 6 hours a week, sophomores 8, juniors and seniors 10, leadership 15. If anyone doesn’t make preseason hours, they get an additional 2 hours per week during build season if they want to continue - to prove they’re dedicated since they weren’t during preseason.
We’ve had one or two students complain, though those were also students who didn’t make hours during preseason. We also have over 50 students on the team making their hours, so honestly they’re probably not restrictive enough.
As for lab open, we’re open M-Th from 5:30-10p, Friday from 5:30-midnight and Saturday noon until midnight, so they have plenty of time to make hours.
How many of them are in a sport? How about in band (with band camp, possibly)?
The followup question will depend on the responses… but it will be something along this line:
If they exhibited their current commitment level in said sport/band, would they continue to remain in said sport/band, or would the coach be removing them? (Anybody says yes, they better be a committed team member–if not, time to remind them about how actions speak louder than words.)
FRC requires time similar to sports and band. Can’t commit the time, do what you can and be open that you can’t commit more.
By the way, 1197’s shop is open two afternoons a week during offseason (and on Saturdays most of the day), and during build it’s every afternoon until late-ish, plus Saturdays and Sunday afternoons. Members aren’t required to be in the shop the whole time, but they are expected to be busy when they’re there. We’re good at finding work for them…
My team meets 6p-9p every Monday through Friday and 9:30 to 3:30 every Saturday of build season as base hours. There is typically changes in who may be asked to come one night or added hours for a skeleton crew before a weekday meeting or after a Saturday meeting.
Attendance is something we have to stress with how many members we have bordering 60 when the season started. It is entirely expected that a person must show up to any and every merting unless they have emailed one of the faculty sponsors ahead of time to let them know. If it is unexcused the receive a absence, and if you get 10 during the whole year you are no longer on the team due to lack of commitment. Of course grades are a top priority and students have to be academically eligible to show up to a meeting (our district states no grades less than a C-) and if you do not have an eligible grade you are asked to stay home to work on getting it up if you can.
At the meetings, you are expected to be productive and work, so if you run out of things to do after a while you should ask if anyone needs help, if not go home so to not be a distraction to those who have something to do. This no one seems to get the concept of and many loiter at meetings which personally stresses me out. This is also mainly a problem due to the size of how many people exactly are on our team this year.
Before build season, we have minimal requirements of participation in our outreach events. We also offer training opportunities, and attendance at these really helps sort out who are the committed team members.
Realizing that some students are able/willing to commit more time than others due to various reasons, we have a tiered system of requirements. A general team member is required to meet 60% of our scheduled time during build season; sub-team captains 75%; main captains 90%. We officially meet for 24.5 hours per week, though in reality it’s somewhere between 30 and 40.
During competition season, we meet less time per week, only scheduling 14 hours, and the percentage requirements are reduced as well.
There’s also an academic requirement which is stricter than the school’s policy on extracurricular participation. We stress that academic success is paramount and if they aren’t putting in the effort in the classroom, why would I expect to see the requisite effort in the shop?
Lastly, we offer varsity letter opportunities. This is more of the carrot approach rather than stick. The criteria put emphasis on participating in all the integral parts of our team: outreach, build season, training, and competitions.
During the preseason, prospective team members participate in workshops run by older and more experienced members in each of our divisions (Design and Manufacturing, Energy Systems, Progamming, Strategy, Marketing&PR and Administration). This is usually a Wednesday afternoon commitment from 2:00-3:30.
During the Build Season, team members on average commit to about 22 hours of time per week, which is the average taken from a google form when they applied for the team. We very rarely look at how long they spent physically in the lab, but more what they’re doing while in the lab. A team member that contributes and works hard for 2 hours on a machine is clearly more committed than the team member that is in the lab for 8 hours, but spends most of it sitting around and using his phone.
When applying, we stress that we’re a robotics TEAM, and as such all the usual commitments apply, like showing up for meetings, being on time and showing earnest effort in the lab. This also means that if people are misbehaving, or not putting any effort into what they do, we can remind them that they were selected to join the team, and that their performance this year affects whether or not they’re invited back to the team next year.
After Build Season ends, most people are told to take it easy and catch up on schoolwork, while a small group of people stay to work on Withholding Allowance stuff. These members keep the build season mentality and time commitment even after build season ends, and they usually end up being the people who put in the most work during Build Season as well. As for the rest of the team, we have a weekly Wednesday meeting to talk about competition preparation, but the time commitment drops significantly.
Our team consists of about 25 members with a core team of about 7-8. Being a small team we make up for it in the time that we put into Robotics. During build season it is 3-9 Monday through Friday, 12-9 on Saturday, and 1-6 on Sunday. This tallies up to 45 hours per week in which we generally get around 10 people every day. Students are encouraged to finish their homework before proceeding into robotics. After build season not much changes and we start improving our practice robot before the competition. Like most teams we also have a preseason where we train up new members on the different machines and design process in which we meet around 2-3 hours per week.
Before asking EricH’s question, I think the question to ask of yourself and the other mentors is whether the robotics team is going to function like a club or a team. A club is going to have different expectations of time/involvement than a team. Once the adults determine that, it will guide where you want to take the member participation level.
I’ve been on one team that operated as a team. Attendance was required three days a week and on Saturdays during build season, and eventually became a class with those hours. During the non-build season, the class did not meet on Saturdays.
The team I’m on now operates as a club. We encourage students to attend, but if something else comes up (such as bowling tournaments), we just ask to be notified to allow us to determine when/how something will be accomplished. This team also stresses that schoolwork comes first, so students may come sit in the classroom and do homework or stay home to do so. Again, communication with the mentors/teacher allow us to handle whatever needs to happen with those that do show up.
(On a side note, we’ve tried to do journals where students write what was done that day, what needs to be done, etc. We will be working with them in the off-season to show them what a journal entry really needs to contain since many of the entries this year were inadequate in the details provided. “Drill holes in arm” doesn’t say how many, where, or size which are required to do the job correctly.)
We’re a new team further complicated by being a community based team (no school or shop to call home base). Our team is about 2/3 rookies though the remaining 1/3 have done at least one season of FRC before and know the commitment levels required.
Our build space is the local community center/gym/pool. Our build time is limited by the hours this building is open - we booked 6-9pm on Monday, Wednesday, Friday evenings and 9-5 on Saturdays during build season. One additional complication was that since we were using open hallways, lounges, and storage areas to build, we had to build in setup and takedown time to every meeting. Tables, chairs, robot parts, drill presses, saws, all had to be torn down and put away each time.
We had a team meeting just before build season where we stressed how often we were going to meet. We did not introduce any rules about minimum commitment levels, only that we were tracking attendance and that leadership roles at competition would naturally be given to the people who have the most hands-on knowledge and experience, and that only comes by actually showing up and working. We also used the hockey/sports team analogy.
Our parents were very supportive and worked out carpools and other arrangements for students to come in multiple times a week. Attendance was generally good, but I think students were disappointed to sometimes arrive to find not much for them to do on a given day. This is offset eventually by the huge amount of work for them to do later, of course, but we will work harder next year at making sure projects are well defined so that we can schedule things better.
I think by the end of build season everyone was just plain getting tired, but everything sprang to life when they experienced their first regional!
