Whole Teams or Sub Teams

[Dancin103]

Ok so this question may have been asked in the past, but I could not find anything. My question is, does your team take the whole team or just a sub-team to the Championship Event? (A sub-team being only a small fraction of your team.)

I'll start, for the last few years, 103 has only take a small group of about 7 to 10 students with about 5 mentors.

I'm just wondering. Thanks for all that reply! :)

[SamMullen]

Since this is the second time we're going to Championship in the last 6 years, you wouldn't be able to say we do anything normally, but we're taking 16 out of a team of 40. We would be taking only 12 kids, but since we won Chairman's we're also taking our presenters and a couple of underclassmen we're grooming for leadership next year. Sub teams are the way to go, if only because it is significantly cheaper.

[EricLeifermann]

I'd say it depends on who is footing the bill.

If you have the students pay to go to competitions like I had to when I was on my high school team, then I say bring as many kids who deserve to go that can also pay to go(we did have payment plans for those who needed it).

As for the team I mentored while in college the team payed for the students to go so we had very strict rules on how to qualify yourself to be able to go to any competition let alone the championship. But we always tried to bring as many students as possible because the championship is something that you have to experience its not something that you can just be told about and really understand it.

[Dancin103]

As for the team I mentored while in college the team payed for the students to go so we had very strict rules on how to qualify yourself to be able to go to any competition let alone the championship. But we always tried to bring as many students as possible because the championship is something that you have to experience its not something that you can just be told about and really understand it.

What type of rules did you implement? I'm just curious because I have thought about this in the past and we have a few rules ourselves, like the student must have certain grades and be on the honor roll to travel with the team.

Cass

[Alex Dinsmoor]

With my experiences with my team (past three years attending CMP), we usually have anyone who would like to attend go. That being said, there is also a cost to attendance which is subsidized by the team. We do this to allow everyone who would like to attend have the opportunity to.

Students who don't attend are usually the students who cannot afford to miss school. (due to CMP being so close to AP testing)

As for numbers, we usually fill up an entire tour bus with our team alone. That includes students, mentors, and parents.

It should also be noted that we have the same grade requirement to attend CMP as our competitions.

[karebear95]

Team MARS takes anyone who wishes to attend. (That's not saying that your team needs to do that.) Our team believes that anyone who wishes to go should have the opportunity to. The team covers as much of the cost as possible, leaving little for the families to pay for. Of course, for those who are financially unable, we pitch in and help them out. The competitions provide a great learning experience, and all our members are involved in activites at the events.

Dependent on the size of your team and the cost, the event should be open to all members, not just a select few. If you're afraid of over-crowding people in your pit area, there's always the stands (the matches are awesome). Scheduling your members to be places tends to help too.

I hope this helps.

[lightsandmusik]

I do not know about before, but last year, as well as this year, we are bringing anyone who would like to go. This includes the driveteam/pit crew, the scouts as well as a couple PR/Spirit people. But our team isn't too big in the first place.

[EricLeifermann]

What type of rules did you implement? I'm just curious because I have thought about this in the past and we have a few rules ourselves, like the student must have certain grades and be on the honor roll to travel with the team.

Cass

To go to just the regional/district competitions you had to attend ever mandatory team meeting we had each week plus a certain percentage of the rest of the build season.

To go to the championship(if we signed up to go) you had to take some sort of leadership with the build as well as attend at leas 85% of the build days(we met 6 days a week for 3-6 hours a day depending on the day) and a couple of other qualifications that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Also you have to have good grades, we didn't have an honor roll rule(that seems really really over the top to me personally) but you had to have at least a C average to travel with no failing grades. Also the teacher from the high school who participated on the team would talk to all the students teachers and get exams or homework that they might miss during the competition and we had mandatory study time every night where the students would do homework or take the exams or just study if they didn't have homework or exams to take.

[Dancin103]

To go to just the regional/district competitions you had to attend ever mandatory team meeting we had each week plus a certain percentage of the rest of the build season.

To go to the championship(if we signed up to go) you had to take some sort of leadership with the build as well as attend at leas 85% of the build days(we met 6 days a week for 3-6 hours a day depending on the day) and a couple of other qualifications that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Also you have to have good grades, we didn't have an honor roll rule(that seems really really over the top to me personally) but you had to have at least a C average to travel with no failing grades. Also the teacher from the high school who participated on the team would talk to all the students teachers and get exams or homework that they might miss during the competition and we had mandatory study time every night where the students would do homework or take the exams or just study if they didn't have homework or exams to take.

This is about what we do. I already talked about our grade requirements. We have a strict attendance policy. You must attended everyday of build season as well as every meeting both during and not during build. (There are a few exemptions from this.) Students also must actively participate in all the fundraisers the team runs and must be active in getting funding for the team (that would be local contributors or corporate sponsors).

Cass

[Robby Unruh]

My team has a first-come-first-serve kind of attitude with this. We rent out so many rooms, and the first people to reserve them with our head mentor gets them.

[nlknauss]

Good thread here...

Some of you mentioned that members needed to have attended a certain percentage of meetings during the year. How do you keep track of attendance? Also, how are those expectations presented to the students?

Nate

[lightsandmusik]

Some of you mentioned that members needed to have attended a certain percentage of meetings during the year. How do you keep track of attendance? Also, how are those expectations presented to the students?

Nate

At our lab, there is a computer by the door as well as a scanner and a wall of name badges with barcodes. One of our mentors made an excel type of thing to keep track of this. It shows who is in, and on another tab it shows the hours. When we come in, (even the FLL kids) we check in, and when we leave, we check out. If you forget to check out, I believe it checks out for you at midnight and it erases your hours for the day. This year, after the first 2-3 weeks the 10 students with the most hours were eligible for drive team.

[Alex Dinsmoor]

Good thread here...

Some of you mentioned that members needed to have attended a certain percentage of meetings during the year. How do you keep track of attendance? Also, how are those expectations presented to the students?

Nate

We have weekly sign in sheets for all of our members to sign in on for each day of build. We then compile the data in those sheets into a giant excel grid which tracks the student attendance throughout the year.

That being said, we use a "three strikes" policy which states if you miss three required meetings without contacting the mentor in charge of attendance, that you are subject to removal from the team.

[Koko Ed]

Going to the championship for our kids is a privilege not a right and they have to qualify to travel there. We use a Star Chart system to track their attendance, community service, school performance, team presentation, journal entries and other goals to earn the right to go to St. Louis.
I have heard only about a dozen out of our original forty qualified (about 15 to 20 quit long before that).

[M.Wong]

We have a travel team consisting of about 30 members. This group is selected using a dozen or so different criteria ranging from attendance to offseason participation.

Members of this group are the only ones excused from school for competition.

Team members who are not on the travel team can still go, albeit they would have to pay.

[penguinfrk]

We're encouraging any member that would like to go to go. Right now, we have 45 members of 75 committed. 6 of our 8 mentors are going.

Our financial aid and scholarships are based on three factors: 1) financial need, 2) commitment, 3) amount raised over the course of the season. There is a core 10 students that need to be there (drive team, Chairman's team, build/programming officers), another 10 or so that should be there (future officers, additional scouts), and the others are a separate tier.

[GiannaLeigh3]

Our team brings anyone who is eligible to go. You must meet a required amount of quality hours put in, meet your fundraising goal, and meet a few other requirements such as your grades, attitude and team participation, in order to go of course but we bring as many students as we can so that they can experience every possible aspect to FIRST.

[JaneYoung]

The FIRST Championships provides the opportunity to see the really big picture of the FIRST programs. Our team works really hard to insure that every student on the team has an opportunity to see that big picture at least once in his/her time on the team, if that is their desire. We also think that parents and mentors gain a greater perspective and understanding of the programs by attending the event at least once.

We have requirements that the students must meet such as maintaining passing grades and giving service hours to the team. We try to encourage the students to keep up and do their part so that they can participate in this amazing event.

We also work very hard to insure that we have funds available for the registration(s) and the travel for the seasons that we are attending or hoping to attend. That is something that I'm reading a lot about - how rookies do not have the plans/funding in place to help them if they've qualified to attend. We all need to get better at getting that word out sooner rather than later in helping them prepare for the potential opportunities of the competition season.

Jane

[SammyKay]

Since we are such a small team, we bring every student because every student has a job to do at Nationals. Plus, we try to make sure that every student gets to experience it when we do go. We only have 11 students on our team, so it makes it a tiny bit easier. We each had to raise $1300 to cover the cost of the two regionals and Championships (we had some big donations that we get almost every year which brought our requirement down to $1300). We also bring about 10-15 mentors/parents with us. I believe this year the total number of people who are going to be on the plane to St. Louis on Wednesday is 22.

[Pjohn1959]

We have time requirements as well. Each student fills out a daily time sheet, that we look at and review to make sure that they are meeting those requirements. However, this year, because our State mandated testing is on the week of Championships, we will only be bringing 4 students. Our three drivers and my one Chairman's presenter.

[Billfred]

This year, since we won the Palmetto Regional, the SC Department of Education gave us a grant to attend Championship. (They've awarded this grant to South Carolina teams that pull it off since at least 2007; I think they also reach out to the award-based qualifiers as well, but I can't confirm.)

As such (and combined with the fact that we're a little light-handed this year), we'll be taking all the students who've been traveling to regionals and can make the trip.

[treffk]

Team 1802 is a relatively small team, 20 members at the max (and I don't think we've ever hit that for more than a few weeks until someone quits). The first year, and only year, we have qualified for championship we took everyone. This ended up being 40+ people including parents. Our airfare was $18,000 alone. It was horrible to keep track of everyone, we actually had a miscommunication and had a student get lost in Atlanta during the Finale and had to locate our hotel by himself (not knowing the name of it or any of our phone numbers).

This year we became more strict on how to attend regionals. We had a time sheet for them to log hours, they had to log 70% of the hours in our season. This would have been criteria for championships too if we had made it to compete. Plus due to lack of funds currently there may have been some financial contribution to attend also.

Since we are only are in the running for website this year we are taking 2 of our promising freshmen to give them a better understanding of FIRST.

[Jon Stratis]

Seeing as we only have about 25 members on the team each year (it's a small school), we take anyone who wants to go. Some students can't make it (grades, other commitments, or they already missed too much school from past competitions and other activities), but we're ensuring everyone who wants to go has that chance. Each student does have to pay their way (or go through existing school structure for financial aid for the trip), but we're working on fundraising activities over the summer that can let them earn refunds for the cost of the trip.

Of course, this is our first time making it to Championships, so I think we might have thrown the rules out the window :p

At the start of the year, we laid out attendance requirements for team members. X number of hours in order to be able to travel with the team to Duluth and X+Y number of hours to be part of the pit crew - overall, it worked out pretty well. Better than past years, where everyone would gravitate towards the pit and leave us with no scouters in the stands!

[Bob Steele]

We have been lucky enough to go to CMP for the past 5 years...
After the first year we decided that CMP would be for the upperclassmen only. The reason for this is that it is a big burden for parents to have to come up with plane tickets for 4 years...

We take about half the team this way...this year we have about 18 students traveling...

We are looking at this right now. We are going to discuss a separate requirement that will not allow a team member to go unless they have been on the team for at least 1 year...

We haven't really had a problem with juniors coming in just to travel... but we want to head of this potentiality...

We fund raise to come to CMP every year... being in Seattle we have to make travel arrangements early so this makes sense for us...
If we ever have a year that we don't qualify we have decided to come and volunteer anyway....

So far we haven't had to do that... we have qualified 7 times in 5 years.

[MayaPapaya27]

On RUSH, everyone is expected to attend all of the competitions we go to. Of course, there are exceptions if you have important previous commitments, but besides that, the only reason a student wouldn't attend is if they have grades below a C-.

[Phoenix Spud]

Because we come from such a far way (last year we became the "most traveled FRC team" by just going to 1 regional and Championships!), traveling is fairly pricey. To compensate for this, we offer a team subsidy for mentors/students who qualify and wish to attend. This year we increased the amount people had to pay to attend which allowed us to take more students.

Please see the chart below for specific events:

2010 GSR: ~35 people
2010 Championships: 4 mentors, 2 mascots, and 8 students (total of 14 people)
2011 Hawaii Regional: ~50 people
2011 Championships: 5 mentors, 16 students (total of 21 people)

[FlyingHedgeHog]

I agree with whoever said it depends on who's footing the bill. Team 1510 has the students pay for it, but we provide financial aid for those who need out. We believe that few things are as inspiring as the atmosphere at the competitions. In order to meet the ultimate goal of FIRST, we believe it is vital to bring as many students as possible to the championships. Besides that; it's just plain fun! Kind of like a science Disney land.