Okay. So I know that there is a somewhat similar topic on this, but it doesn’t quite answer all of my questions. With the new season starting up on the 25th, I was just curious how much time it takes to do each of the tasks that make for a successful season. I was also curious how long a good productive practice/meeting should be. As I will be a junior during the 2020 - 2021 season, and my dream has been to make it to worlds, I only have two more years of VRC and am trying to make that dream come true by using all the strategies and suggestions available. Finally, I was curious how many days per week you spend doing robotics. Thanks!
How many Hours do you spend at one meet/practice (hours)?
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How much time do you dedicate to notebooking in a week (minutes)?
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How much time do you spend coding in a season (hours)?
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How much time do you spend building in a week (hours)?
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How much time do you spend researching in a season (hours)?
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How much time do you spend Practicing driving/auton/skills in a season (hours)
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Finally, how many times have you been to worlds?
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Thank you!
(Yes, I know that some of the numbers are unrealistic)
20 hours per season for programming is very low for a lot of teams. I think the only time I spent less than 20 hours working on programming was first season in high school. My builders probably do 10-20 hours of programming on their respective robots because they go some of the tuning to suit the robot to their driving style.
if you’re taking research in the whole season, and practicing auton and driving in the whole season, then yeah I have a ton. Maybe even more than the options I’d have to think about that.
I think this should be hours in a season because there are weeks where my team and I put in 20+ hours in a week building and then there is the point where you stop making changes and drive 20+ hours a week. Also, a lot of people do coding outside of school as I do so the hours rack up fast. And oh boy don’t get me started on driving practice and research. I do about 40+ hours of research in the summer alone and in ITZ my teammate and I had about 150 hours of driver practice for worlds alone. I think you may have under estimated the amount of time that some people spend on robotics.
I got stuck at the very 1st question…
in a normal sch days, my students spend abt 6hrs after school in the lab (at least 3 times a week).
During sch holidays, they spend abt 10 hrs in the lab every day.
And about 3 weeks before competitions, they spend up to 14 hrs in the lab every day.
Edit: and do bear in mind that our season normally starts in mid-May.
Frc teams working 32 hour weeks during build season… (two four hour days, and two 12 hour days - the real grind)
While I did vex I had 3 hours per week.
But always bear in mind that FRC has a much shorter season than VRC.
If you are just looking at the crunch time period (ie. just before competition), then my teams easily exceed that 32 hrs week.
VRC is a more of a marathon than a sprint. My advice is to pace yourself well to last the 10 or 11 mth Long season.
Sorry for the weird numbers on the polls, but so far, the info that all of you have contributed is really giving me a good idea on the areas that my team and I should be working on.
I would say the two most important polls are the documentation and the researching part of robotics. If these two things are not solid, you will find your end goal of going to worlds will be tons harder. At the beginning of the season you should do research on designs, how to build , how to code, strategies, etc. All of this research should be documented in the notebook. You should spend as much time as you need on this first step and not rush the process. It will feel very slow but if you make a plan and follow it, you will have a better chance at worlds.
