Pretty much title, what is it like being in a very successful team? Successful team being a completely relative term, by which I think I mean: winning chairmans, or finishing as finalists for their division. I am curious to know what your experiences are like, coming from someone who loves going to pits and ogling over robots I am curious as to what else happens to you guys in the pits and elsewhere?
Exhausting.
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Although I wouldn’t call us a powerhouse, we have been blessed with some successes (and failures) over the years.
I ditto Cory’s remark “Exhausting”.
7 days a week, little sleep.
but the bonds of family that are formed through the hard work and struggle are a treasure.
I’ll echo this. Obviously, my team isn’t on that level at champs yet, but within MN we’re one of the most awarded teams over the past 11 years. 29 awards, which comes out to 2.6 per year, or 1.2 per event. That puts us in the top 5 in the state, whichever way you look at it. And putting in the time and effort for all those awards in addition to building a competitive bot (Ignoring last year and this year, everyone has an off-year or two) is exhausting. It’s two completely different skill sets that are often used by the same students and mentors, and the time needed for each of them pulls at the time available for the other.
Even though we aren’t technically a powerhouse team, we but in so many hours it feels like I am working two jobs and raising a child(our bot)!
I’d be curious to see the average hours from students on powerhouse teams vs non-powerhouse teams.
I would like to echo this as well, made some really good friends, or better yet family during my last year in first as a student. And lost my fair share of sleep.
It’s really not all about hours. I know teams that have never won an award or an event that put in significantly more hours each week than my team does. It’s about organization and efficiency more than anything else. But when you get that organization in place, it can lead to more time spent as you attempt to tackle more.
Alot of teams track their hours in an app or something similar.
I would think the hours worked are similar they just accomplish more with their time.
Example: I bet the students on 254 accomplish more in one 5 hour weekday build day than my students because they probably aren’t taking as many snack breaks and playing on their phones.
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195 is at the very least a New England powerhouse.
I love seeing and hearing from students on 195 that they were at the practice field/shop till 2 or 3am. It’s the rhetoric I use to keep my own students motivated!
I can’t even imagine… I don’t think the OP was talking about a team like us, but 17 years, 35 Awards, attended champs 7 times, and only 2 regional wins… and we seemed to be pretty burned out (students and mentors) about this time each year. I can’t imagine what it is like to be the 254’s, 1678’s, 118’s, etc… out there. I’m definitely in awe of what they do and how they keep themselves organized to avoid the “burnout”.
From a mentor’s perspective, intense, fun and rewarding. I put limits on how involved I am (it could be my entire life easily), but I still devote significant time. There are moments of pressure, but we try to bring it back to perspective–this is only a competition, not real life, and our true mission is education.
It requires a lot of dedication, but I was a strong competitive athlete in my younger days so I know of what it required to achieve competitive success. It just doesn’t happen by chance on a continuing basis. Also being creative in finding solutions to all sorts of problems (not just the challenge) is helpful.
And no one does it on their own. We have a mentor team that trusts each other in our roles. We see that same dynamic in every other team we ally with who is a captain or first pick. And we can see which second pick teams on their way to being successful. (That characteristic has come into play in our alliance selections, and swayed 118 and us in 2015 in picking 1671 and 5012.)
I think we might get to meet more people of like minds as its easier to identify the teams that have a similar mission. There are other teams that have different missions, but they have to dig deeper below the surface to find similar teams. (4543 The Illuminators is an example of such a team I admire).
And we take a break over the summer. Steve Harvey goes wind surfing for a month (ask him about his new RV). I took a portion of the summer away from robotics. We do start up before the school year and run to Memorial Day.
Try to do less. Build “simpler” robot. Decide simpler robot isn’t good enough. Spend massive amounts of time engineering around problems you created for yourself.
So I guess the answer is don’t try?
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If 195 has not yet achieved powerhouse status, then there are no powerhouse teams. We watch for you from California…
That concerns me more than anything, especially if there’s school the next day.
Just before TVR, I crawled downstairs in my bathrobe one morning to find two mentors and a student showing up at my house from being at the shop all night. My first thought was “please tell me your mom knew where you were” (she did).
That student was exhausted and hungry but had the hugest smile on his face. He finally achieved 40 kPa in auto. It took all night.
I fed him, put him to bed and called his mom to let her know He was sleeping…and VERY happy.
That’s what it takes. Focused, “All nighters” that achieve a goal. It isn’t always the number of hours…but what you do with the time. With so many Connecticut teams visiting at our practice field, often our most focused work has to be after 10pm when everyone has gone home.
Being a “powerhouse” means sharing with other teams and helping them succeed. It is the MOST important responsibility.
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This is where it’s gets esoteric and opaque for me, and maybe others. What is it you see? I know from asking questions at champs last year and this year that the amount of time put in by students and mentors is the same or less than that done by teams with less success. So I know it’s not really about time, or commitment, or resources, or money. From out here (those of us really trying to improve our programs and our robots) it feels a little bit like the sound of one hand clapping.
There isn’t necessarily a linear relationship between time and performance – it’s much more of an optimization problem. When I was a student there were years both the team and individuals put in a ton of hours(less than a lot of teams still I imagine), and we were easily burnt out by midseason. The team actually had significantly more success by both being more efficient in the shop, and spending less time there, thereby reducing the burn-out of our workforce which allowed us to iterate later in the season.
Not 1678 but I see similar characteristics that have been spot on at being a predictor to rising stars. From my perspective, it’s a combination of attitude, organization, and newfound technical expertise. Personally, I think attitude is the biggest factor. It’s easy to tell which teams are hungry for the win and which team’s goals are simply to just do well. Having that attitude will eventually work its way to improving those other characteristics as well. Part of that too is recognizing when the process or robot mechanisms are insufficient and needs improvement or redesign. Something our team continuously tries to improve every year.
After talking with you guys briefly at Arizona North last year, I definitely think you are well on your way to breaking through and winning an event next year. Heck even before Arizona North last year, we had you on our teams to watch list because we were very impressed with the drivetrain 1339 posted.
I’m sure there’s some team dynamics. Strong mentor roles are important on every such team. They provide the institutional memory about what worked and what didn’t.
We have given a set of workshops on what we hope is guidance for other teams. The videos are at citruscircuits.org. If you have specific questions, please contact us. And we’re more than willing to sit down at competitions to discuss this as well–come find us in the stands.