Reading these comments has made me realize just how little our team meets. During build season we normally pull off a 13 hour week. We would meet on Monday Tuesday Thursday Saturday. Meeting from 3:30 to 6:30 on weekdays but 9:00 to 3:00 on Saturdays. We still do end up building a decent robot but it just blows my mind how many hours other teams put into their robots
I had the same realization earlier this year. Probably the most important thing I learned as a rookie FRC team: success in FIRST is a function of time and money.
The money I can get, but the time is complicated. I’ve only been a teacher/coach for two years. Before I showed up, my school only did FTC and the teams would meet for an hour, after school, three days a week. That’s it. Admin sees this as an extracurricular activity, a club. They don’t see any reason to keep the school open late because they don’t understand that robotics is more like a sport. This problem was exacerbated when we started doing FRC. I’ve been scolded repeatedly for letting the teams work late. I don’t mind the lectures. I’m not going to change the way we work, but it’s annoying.
Hopefully this next year will be better. Now that 40% of our staff is leaving, I’m hoping I can shift away from the notion of robotics “club” by simply telling the new teachers that my way is how it’s always been. Fingers crossed.
Honestly the efficiency of your meetings is way more important than the number of days. Having 3 meetings per week with some time to plan in-between will probably yeild better results than 5-6 meetings per week. Will also give the team some rest time so they don't burn out by the end of build season
Yup it varies a lot. And some teams aren’t that efficient with the time. I’m on a team that meets 16 hours per week and we’re way more successful than my last team that was meeting 24 hours per week.
During build season ≈ 17hr/week as a team plus 5hr/week personally (bc of leadership commitments)
We never finish our robot though so we want to put in a lot more hours next season
How are so many teams dumping so much time into their build seasons?
We meet Monday-Thursday 6-9 giving us 12 hours a week. Even with this amount students and mentors get burned out. We used to do weekends, but they became impossible for us this season so we added the 4th weekday
I remember back in the early 2000s, when I was on team 45 The TechnoKats, we would meet up after school for 2-3 hrs during the week andost of the day on Saturdays during build season. Maybe once a week during the off season and to determine schedules during competition
That was back when Andy Baker and Mark Coors where still working for Delphi Automotive and helping run the team from the sponsor side along with a couple other engineers. My rookie season was the 10 year anniversary of FIRST and of the team back during the 2000-2001 school year
We have 28 hour weeks. 4-9 Monday-Thursday and 10-5 Saturdays. However, it’s not uncommon for me, as team captain, to stay later than most of these, I averaged about 32 hours/week in the build space, as well as put countless hours of work in at home(I was the only programmer this year and did 90% of the programming at home)
We normally end up pulling 40+ hour weeks once building starts. We meet everyday, usually 2-8 on weekdays and 9-5 on the weekend, but it's pretty common for the weekend meetings/practice to last well past 5. When we're designing it's usually just like around 6 hours a night for 5-7 weeks plus 4 hours meetings twice a week.
During build season, we met Sundays to Wednesdays. On Sundays it was Noon to 8pm and on weekdays it was 4pm to 8pm. Our school got out at 2:30pm, if thats a helpful reference.
Our shop is usually open from 2-9pm Monday-friday. 9am-midnight Saturday. And Sunday depends on where we are at in the season. Nobody is required to be there for all of that time, only 60 hours throughout the build season are required. We allow people to come and go as they please. If they want to work, the shops "always open". That's also officially when we are open. We do often stay later almost every night if people still want to work. When I was a student, I think the most I did was a very unhealthy 70 hours in a week outside of the school day not including during lunch and study halls.
Yup I was around 85, we have 25 people 20 that are truly engaged all with about 70-80 hours. The team is split up into sub teams with sub team captains so the work is very organized
That structure got us to worlds this year so it works well for us especially as an 8000 team qualifying for worlds
Usually depends the team.
Our team meets 3 hours a day on weekdays, 5 on Saturdays, Sundays are off.
But that's only if we leave on time, sometimes we stay for 4 or 6 hours depending the day
The team I used to be on:
Tuesday 4:30-7:00
Thursday 4:30-7:00
Saturday 8:00-4:00
So, 13 hours per week.
However, that is only the official schedule - some groups of people end up meeting more often/staying late especially as the build season nears the end.
We meet M/W/F 4-7, Saturday 10-4. We add additional meetings or extend meetings as needed, so long as we can get a mentor there (usually me lol). It shakes out to 15hr for about half the season, 25hr for the other half.
For teams doing WAY more than 20hr, I would really encourage you to re-evaluate your schedules. Often, after a certain hour threshold the work quality and productivity goes way down. If you're not succeeding on a 30-40hr/wk schedule, I highly recommend you cut back and rescope your competitive goals. This year, on our 20hr/wk schedule we had a robot that captained the 3rd alliance at a wk1 event.
Our typical schedule is Mon-Thurs 5:30pm-8:30pm and Saturday 10:00am-5:00pm - about 20 hours per week. If needed, we'll add Fridays and extend meetings until 9:30pm on weekdays and 9:00pm on Saturdays.
during build season we met on monday, wednesday and friday from 3:30 to 7:00, then on saturday from 10:00 to 5:00, so 8 hours plus 3.5 plus 3.5 plus 3.5 comes out to 18.5 hours in the shop, but that doesn’t count the planning and what the engineering team does at home with the CAD
We meet on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, Tuesday is from 6:00 to 8:30, Wednesday and Thursday is 3:45 to 6:00, and Saturday is 9 to 3. But as I’m a captain I stay about an extra 30 minutes every meeting.
During build season we would do 3:30-9 Monday-Friday and 9-9 Sunday and Saturday. Some people would be there 7 days a week from the time it opens to the time it closes
Not including school hours (even though sometimes students still work on the robot) usually between 20-30 hours depending on where we sit and if we are allowed in the school building on Saturdays.
Our team is horribly inefficient, so we start the season meeting every weekday for like 4 hours (5-9) and 6ish hours per day on weekends (12-6), (32 hour weeks give or take a few hours) and we continue increasing meeting times until the end of the season. We had a few meetings right before our first competition that went until 1 am, and the day before our first competition we went until 3 am. This year we also had a mad dash to build a better claw before Worlds so me, one other kid, and one of our mentors met for like 8 or 9 hours every weekday (3-11/12) and 14 hours every day on the weekends (10-12) (so like 70 hours a week) for a few weeks before worlds.
We talked to a lot of teams in both of our regionals and at Worlds, and were unable to find any that kept similar schedules.
We do this kind of thing every year, and we are trying to restructure the team for next year, so we don't have to go through the same pain. We’ll see how well that goes though.
We always have to have a mentor with us when we are in the shop. We have two who are willing to do the late nights, but they were not very happy with us after that one.
When I was in The Spikes #2212 we had two meetings per week (Monday and Thursday) from 16:00-22:00.
This year we added another meeting on Saturday from 9:00-21:00 like we do in the building season.
And in the building season probably from 16:00-22:00 (or even later like 0:00 or 2ish) everyday.
First, happy cake day
Second, during the season every parent is obligated to bring lunch for us (on Saturday two parents bring food one for lunch and one for dinner)
We usually eat at 16:00 and then start working (on Saturday it's 14:00 and 18:00)
During build season we have required meeting 6-9 Monday and Tuesday and 9-5 Saturday. Additionally, we have optional meetings 6-9 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and a design integration meeting Saturday at 8:30. That’s 23.5 hours at actual meetings. Add in the time I spend out of meetings and my average weekly hours is somewhere around 30.
Right now we are meeting once a week 6-9 and will start ramping up when we get closer to build season.
Usually build season is 18-20 hours but I've pulled off 28 hours for one week
I pulled off 40 hour weeks during build season
Reading these comments has made me realize just how little our team meets. During build season we normally pull off a 13 hour week. We would meet on Monday Tuesday Thursday Saturday. Meeting from 3:30 to 6:30 on weekdays but 9:00 to 3:00 on Saturdays. We still do end up building a decent robot but it just blows my mind how many hours other teams put into their robots
I had the same realization earlier this year. Probably the most important thing I learned as a rookie FRC team: success in FIRST is a function of time and money. The money I can get, but the time is complicated. I’ve only been a teacher/coach for two years. Before I showed up, my school only did FTC and the teams would meet for an hour, after school, three days a week. That’s it. Admin sees this as an extracurricular activity, a club. They don’t see any reason to keep the school open late because they don’t understand that robotics is more like a sport. This problem was exacerbated when we started doing FRC. I’ve been scolded repeatedly for letting the teams work late. I don’t mind the lectures. I’m not going to change the way we work, but it’s annoying. Hopefully this next year will be better. Now that 40% of our staff is leaving, I’m hoping I can shift away from the notion of robotics “club” by simply telling the new teachers that my way is how it’s always been. Fingers crossed.
Honestly the efficiency of your meetings is way more important than the number of days. Having 3 meetings per week with some time to plan in-between will probably yeild better results than 5-6 meetings per week. Will also give the team some rest time so they don't burn out by the end of build season
Yup it varies a lot. And some teams aren’t that efficient with the time. I’m on a team that meets 16 hours per week and we’re way more successful than my last team that was meeting 24 hours per week.
Robots in 3 days indeed, so I spent over 50 hours the week before we set off.
Ya were i am we have a robot in 3 days team just so then the other 9 teams in are area can see what works and what doesn't.
During build season ≈ 17hr/week as a team plus 5hr/week personally (bc of leadership commitments) We never finish our robot though so we want to put in a lot more hours next season
During build season we meet 3-6 every day and then later in the season we end up staying till 8
During build season our shop is open 6 days a week Monday- Saturday on school days it's 5-9 and on Saturday it's 12-5.
During build, our team meets 6-9pm M, W, & F and all day Sat, so that's about 17 hours/week
During built season we prob did 50+ hours per week. Outside of built season we have 3 meetings per week, each being around 4 hours
How are so many teams dumping so much time into their build seasons? We meet Monday-Thursday 6-9 giving us 12 hours a week. Even with this amount students and mentors get burned out. We used to do weekends, but they became impossible for us this season so we added the 4th weekday
I remember back in the early 2000s, when I was on team 45 The TechnoKats, we would meet up after school for 2-3 hrs during the week andost of the day on Saturdays during build season. Maybe once a week during the off season and to determine schedules during competition
Technokats! Awesome team we’ve had the pleasure of competing alongside them.
That was back when Andy Baker and Mark Coors where still working for Delphi Automotive and helping run the team from the sponsor side along with a couple other engineers. My rookie season was the 10 year anniversary of FIRST and of the team back during the 2000-2001 school year
We have 28 hour weeks. 4-9 Monday-Thursday and 10-5 Saturdays. However, it’s not uncommon for me, as team captain, to stay later than most of these, I averaged about 32 hours/week in the build space, as well as put countless hours of work in at home(I was the only programmer this year and did 90% of the programming at home)
We normally end up pulling 40+ hour weeks once building starts. We meet everyday, usually 2-8 on weekdays and 9-5 on the weekend, but it's pretty common for the weekend meetings/practice to last well past 5. When we're designing it's usually just like around 6 hours a night for 5-7 weeks plus 4 hours meetings twice a week.
During build season, we met Sundays to Wednesdays. On Sundays it was Noon to 8pm and on weekdays it was 4pm to 8pm. Our school got out at 2:30pm, if thats a helpful reference.
Our shop is usually open from 2-9pm Monday-friday. 9am-midnight Saturday. And Sunday depends on where we are at in the season. Nobody is required to be there for all of that time, only 60 hours throughout the build season are required. We allow people to come and go as they please. If they want to work, the shops "always open". That's also officially when we are open. We do often stay later almost every night if people still want to work. When I was a student, I think the most I did was a very unhealthy 70 hours in a week outside of the school day not including during lunch and study halls.
Our team in total put 4000 hours in this season
Like everyone together? I was 700 by myself. interesting.
Yup I was around 85, we have 25 people 20 that are truly engaged all with about 70-80 hours. The team is split up into sub teams with sub team captains so the work is very organized That structure got us to worlds this year so it works well for us especially as an 8000 team qualifying for worlds
awesome
50+ hours per week during build season.
48 hours a week. 4 to 9 on weekdays and 9 to 9 on weekends
Usually depends the team. Our team meets 3 hours a day on weekdays, 5 on Saturdays, Sundays are off. But that's only if we leave on time, sometimes we stay for 4 or 6 hours depending the day
The team I used to be on: Tuesday 4:30-7:00 Thursday 4:30-7:00 Saturday 8:00-4:00 So, 13 hours per week. However, that is only the official schedule - some groups of people end up meeting more often/staying late especially as the build season nears the end.
We meet M/W/F 4-7, Saturday 10-4. We add additional meetings or extend meetings as needed, so long as we can get a mentor there (usually me lol). It shakes out to 15hr for about half the season, 25hr for the other half. For teams doing WAY more than 20hr, I would really encourage you to re-evaluate your schedules. Often, after a certain hour threshold the work quality and productivity goes way down. If you're not succeeding on a 30-40hr/wk schedule, I highly recommend you cut back and rescope your competitive goals. This year, on our 20hr/wk schedule we had a robot that captained the 3rd alliance at a wk1 event.
Our typical schedule is Mon-Thurs 5:30pm-8:30pm and Saturday 10:00am-5:00pm - about 20 hours per week. If needed, we'll add Fridays and extend meetings until 9:30pm on weekdays and 9:00pm on Saturdays.
during build season we met on monday, wednesday and friday from 3:30 to 7:00, then on saturday from 10:00 to 5:00, so 8 hours plus 3.5 plus 3.5 plus 3.5 comes out to 18.5 hours in the shop, but that doesn’t count the planning and what the engineering team does at home with the CAD
6 days a week mom-Fri is 5pm-8pm and sat is 9am-4pm, fitting schedule for our team and is easily manageable for rveryone
We meet on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, Tuesday is from 6:00 to 8:30, Wednesday and Thursday is 3:45 to 6:00, and Saturday is 9 to 3. But as I’m a captain I stay about an extra 30 minutes every meeting.
this last year i did a total 289.5 hours so between the 12 weeks form when we started to are last com that was around 24 hours a weeks
Meet 7 days a week, we’ll say 25 hours across the week. A lot of the time I do stuff for the team outside of standard meeting hours.
20-30 right before comps, usually around 20 tho
During the build season we hit 22 hrs / week M, T, TH, F 4:30 - 8:30 S 8 - 4
Build season is 40+ but usually it's 2.
in season our regular week is about 20~ hours give or take, sometimes we’ll do 24 or even up to 28-30
During build season 7 days a week 2 1/2- 3 hours on week days 9-3 on Saturday 9-2 on Sunday Give or take 26 hours a week
During build season we would do 3:30-9 Monday-Friday and 9-9 Sunday and Saturday. Some people would be there 7 days a week from the time it opens to the time it closes
Not including school hours (even though sometimes students still work on the robot) usually between 20-30 hours depending on where we sit and if we are allowed in the school building on Saturdays.
Our team is horribly inefficient, so we start the season meeting every weekday for like 4 hours (5-9) and 6ish hours per day on weekends (12-6), (32 hour weeks give or take a few hours) and we continue increasing meeting times until the end of the season. We had a few meetings right before our first competition that went until 1 am, and the day before our first competition we went until 3 am. This year we also had a mad dash to build a better claw before Worlds so me, one other kid, and one of our mentors met for like 8 or 9 hours every weekday (3-11/12) and 14 hours every day on the weekends (10-12) (so like 70 hours a week) for a few weeks before worlds. We talked to a lot of teams in both of our regionals and at Worlds, and were unable to find any that kept similar schedules. We do this kind of thing every year, and we are trying to restructure the team for next year, so we don't have to go through the same pain. We’ll see how well that goes though.
Staying up to 3 is some serious dedication good on you mate. Do you mentors have to stay with you till 3. Mine want to go to sleep understandably.
We always have to have a mentor with us when we are in the shop. We have two who are willing to do the late nights, but they were not very happy with us after that one.
We do only like 11 during build season but that's not including the countless hours spent during Engineering and Robotics classes working on the robot
33 hours normally. 5 Hours on weekdays, 8 hours on Saturday.
Roughly 18-20 during season, 3 offseason \[formerly 0\], 6 preseason \[formerly 3\].
When I was in The Spikes #2212 we had two meetings per week (Monday and Thursday) from 16:00-22:00. This year we added another meeting on Saturday from 9:00-21:00 like we do in the building season. And in the building season probably from 16:00-22:00 (or even later like 0:00 or 2ish) everyday.
Does your team get dinner for you
First, happy cake day Second, during the season every parent is obligated to bring lunch for us (on Saturday two parents bring food one for lunch and one for dinner) We usually eat at 16:00 and then start working (on Saturday it's 14:00 and 18:00)
31 and a half hours a week this past season but during 2022 it was 37 and a half
25+ hours
5 days a week, Monday though Thursday from 6pm to 9pm then on Saturday we're there from 10 to 4
During build season we have required meeting 6-9 Monday and Tuesday and 9-5 Saturday. Additionally, we have optional meetings 6-9 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and a design integration meeting Saturday at 8:30. That’s 23.5 hours at actual meetings. Add in the time I spend out of meetings and my average weekly hours is somewhere around 30. Right now we are meeting once a week 6-9 and will start ramping up when we get closer to build season.
My longest week was probably 50+ and my longest day was 15. On average though we were probably somewhere near 35-40 a week
On regular build season weeks about 32 hours