Anyone concerned about the possibility of not being allowed to go to Nationals?
 

At the risk of attracting bad thoughts, this one keeps creeping into my head. :(

Re: Anyone concerned about the possibility of not being allowed to go to Nationals?
 

If war happens there is a good chance of alot of teams not showing(either due to their own, the parents or the school districts choices) or the competition being placed on the back burner or even outright cancelled.

FIRST has already posted on their site no matter what happens with the whole war situation, nationals is still going to be held.

war..
 

we haven't qualified for nats yet, but if war does happen, my school district says we cant fly! so we would have to drive from columbus, ohio to Houston texas..ekk...and another team from my school district is going to nats...

Well If there is a travel issue (like the days after 9/11, all civilian planes where grounded cept one Suadi Jet) what do you think they will do? They will kinda need to cancel it... noone will be there.

well i dont think they will stop the nats enlse they feel threaten but if we are at war there will be tighter security

I agree, if we are @ War... I dont think they will cancel it. But if there is like a threat of a "terror attack" they just might change their plans. I guess we will find out tomarrow night if we will infact being launching a full attack on Iraq.

I've been told that if we are at war, we will not be allowed to go. However, if I give the airline tickets to the kids...it is up to their parents if they want to send them...just wouldn't be a "school-sponsored" event. I will go no matter what...so if the parents wish to send those kids on the trip, that is up to the parents. I think that the kids would have two unexcused days at school, though.

It's a way around it! :)

Um...they wont have to cancel it...there is this thing called a bus that works just as well...plus you get quality bonding time with your team

Well, most of our team can't go anyway (anyone who can pay, runs up to about 1000 and chances are our robot won't even be competing, we'd just be volunteering, not that thats bad), and I don't know what our school districts (2) would do about it.

Even so, the price might be higher since we didn't qualify for nationals yet, so we would have to put in a last minute flight plan (talking 4 days) if we qualify at So. Cal regional.

A bus isn't actually a bad idea...

I for one will be at nationals in chance of war or a likely terrorist attack, I've worked to hard to be scared off by a billion to one chance of harm.

Its a long bus ride from Manchester NH to Texas.

although I enjoyed the last road trip I took, that was down the east coast. I should head out west in a car or something.... it would be fun

our team is taking a bus (from north carolina) anyway cause we dont have the money to fly, but.....

yeah - i am actually really worried about what our school district is gonna say - because if they cancel out of state field trips, our team cant go. theres pretty much no doubt about that. And our team has worked INSANELY hard to get the money to go, and im sure many other teams have done the same thing.

im not saying that FIRST should cancel or postpone nationals, they should just think of what the teams (since they are school based) are going to be doing about the situation, and then take appropriate action.

as pointed up above if we are at war some schools wont sponsor the event. and the trip is expensive i mean i live in fr lauderdale and there is no way i am making a bus ride there its like a U but i know if we go to war and my school deonst sponsor i will still fly there cause i didnt work 6 weeks on a robot to lose out to sadam

My team isn't really sponsored by a certain school so we shouldn't have that problem. We'll be taking a van to Houston (if we qualify, *crossed fingers*). We live in AR so it won't be too bad. The drive to St.Louis was pretty long but overall fairly pleasant (except for the whole re-learning how to walk after your legs have been in the same position for 6 & a half hours).

well if you didnt see the presidents speech he sayed that sadam and his cabinet has 48 hours to leave or htere will be military consquences

He said military action at the time of our choosing, not necesarily (but most likely) right away

Many school districts cancled everything for months after 9/11 and some will probobly do so again. The reason is if something happens there responsible and worried parents will sue them. Personaly and most like statistics would agree its safer to fly now than ever before and safer than traveling any other way. The only change I forsee is no more carrying tools in your carryon like you used to be. FIRST already posted there viewpoint. If your school board does make a decision just go to the meeting in mass with as many members, parents, and any media(school boards hate negative media) and argue why you should be allowed to go.

Hopefully, our district won't take any rash actions like they did last year. Fortunately, we were able to convince them to let us fly to Florida. With luck, if we have problems, we'll be able to do so again. We can be very convincing...

Paranoia
 

I just found it hilarious that people would go by car instead of by plane (it's safer by plane). People get needlessly worried about these things.

well the bombs are fallling and are school is still letting us go right now i am sitting at a hotel outside of ucf its 6:30 am and pits open at 8 for are first day on the site we didnt get up here to about 12 and then we found out that we have free highspeed internet access we are done after that we didnt go to bed till 4 am so about 2 hours of sleep it was great i mean we worked on robotics stuff that whole time but we had no sense of time woops andrelin kicks in just be mad tired after so off to ucf

I know many teams who will not be allowed to go. Our team for one has been given the "no go" for nationals....I know 810 isn't allowed to go to SVR....

I'll be there, war or no war.

I second that!

Seriously, it's plenty safe, just watch out for yourself. If you see someone on the plane that makes you uncomfortable, tell the flight attendant, and get off, they will put you on the next flight.

If your robot is there, and you are there, what's to stop you from competing? As long as you have an operating team. And an adult or two.

if i had my tickets...and my trip was already paid for....I would still be going :)

i don't think people realize how much security is at the airports now due to the war...its alot safer to fly than it ever was...theres high security everywhere....everything is safe...

go have fun...don't let the war stop you...thats what the terrorists and other want, they want you to put your life on hold, they want you to be scared...theres nothing to be scared of....

As I read these posts, it saddens me at the steps that certain high schools are taken in response to this so-called 'war'. I'm not even going to go into the semantics that masquerade as the 'reasons' that we have troops over there, its beneath the opinion that hold over the people who visit these forums. However I find it strange that people are spasming out over traveling to nationals or regionals over fear of terrorist attacks.

Granted, there is always risk when you travel in times of war. But that means nothing. I find it ridiculous that schools are stopping the students that participate in this program from participating. Granted, I'm no longer in high school and am able to act independently in most respects. However, by stopping students from doing things that they want to do such as the FIRST program, it shows that our society has crashed and the terrorists that hate American society have already won. Quite frankly, the best way to show these people that we aren't afraid of them, that we will resist them is to go on with life as normal. It's impossible to describe how much it pisses them off when we are able to do just that.

Therefore I wholeheartedly send my support to any team who's schools are pulling support. Guys, fight your school boards if you need be; convince parents to bring you to competitions if need be. Hell, if I had my own vehicle, I would offer rides to those I could to regionals and such. I think we, as Americans, are stronger than these people think. And we, as FIRSTers, can show our strength by supporting this great program.

Granted, this is more mushy than my normal types of messages, but I find it ridiculous that school boards would act in this way. Good luck guys, and I hope to see you at nationals.

Really guys, it's not our decision to be scared. It's the 5 people a the head of a table listening to over reacting parents and then their insurance companies say no trips. It's not our decision. The school board listens to the insurance companies and the over reacting parents.

I'm still hoping that we can make it to Houston.

Seriously, it's plenty safe, just watch out for yourself. If you see someone on the plane that makes you uncomfortable, tell the flight attendant, and get off, they will put you on the next flight.

I would not do that.
If you get on a plane, then get off, they will then require that the plane be emptied, searched, checked, all passengers be checked then re-boarded. Takes over an hour. Been their, done that.

It looks like my team's sponsor may cancel our trip. As a defense contractor, they generally cancel travel during a conflict like this, and because our tickets and rooms were paid for on their credit cards, we get canceled too.

Our school has already postponed international travel (to France, etc.) but they have not mentioned canceling domestic trips.

It's wait-and-see at this point.

--Jordan

I booked my flight and hotel last night. My team's not going, because they didn't qualify. I'm going myself, just because. As long as your parents authorize it, there is nothing to stop you from going, just don't consider it a "School Trip." How would it be any different (assuming your parents want you to go) from them calling up the school and saying they are taking you on vacation to Houston for a few days? In most districts, the school can't stop you if you parents intervene. Granted, you will loose the "school trip" aspect of it, but you'll still end up in Texas and able to work with your robot, and they really can't penalize you if your parents make it excused (especially if you learn more through FIRST than you would sitting in a classroom for the 3 days :cool: ).

How will this effect the international teams comming into the US for this. Obviously getting across the border is going to be a lot stricter than normal...

Comments from International team members?

I talked to Mrs. Talmage (one of our team leaders) yesterday, and there actually is a rule that would stop us. Apparently (this is coming from her), FIRST has a rule that each team MUST be sponsered or in some way affiliated with a high school, and if a group of people arrive who are not on an "official field trip sponsored by their team's school" then they are not allowed to open the crate. This happened in 2001 at VCU, when the (I believe) Norfolk team went to the competition in vans. Well, there was some law in VA that said if students rode in a 15+ passenger van, it had to have a roll bar, but their vans did not have such a device. So the team's school would not recognize it as an official trip once they found out, because they feared getting sued. Anyway, because of that, they weren't allowed to open their crate. My team (I wasn't on it that year) offered to share our bus with the Norfolk team to go to and from the competition, and then to travel back home too, and this convinced Norfolk's school to sponsor the trip, and thus the team could open their crate on Friday. Anyway, the point is, from what I understand from my team leader, if you go up without your school's approval, you can watch and have fun, but you can't touch your robot. And according to her, that is a FIRST rule.

Stephen

PS. She was very adamant with the fact that each team must be sponsored by or affiliated with a high school. I saw several posts here on Chief Delphi which stated there are some teams who were not affiliated with high schools. Does anyone have a definitive answer to this question?

If you feel unsafe, then I don't think it really matters.

About the high school thing, that seems strange, but I guess we'd have to go by that, oh well, I'll still be there at least to watch, if they won't let us opent he crate.

There's no requirement that a team be affiliated with a high school. There is a requirement that high school students be on the team. I know specifically that team 365 really isn't affiliated with any high schools (someone from that team correct me if I'm wrong but I always got the impression it was just a bunch of high school students from different schools from around the area that worked on the robot). I've never heard of the rule nor the problem caused by a school not recognizing a team.

Matt

You are absolutely correct. We are not affiliated with any high school. We meet at one of our sponsers' (DuPont) facilities, and our team includes 15 highschools and a couple homeschoolers.

sparky
 

Hey 384.. I read your posts in the other thread about all trips being cancelled or postponed for now, that really sucks!!!! I hope you guys get to go.. I dont even know if our team is going to be allowed to go, we havent heard anything either way on the matter yet, so we're just hoping for the best right now.. So, I guess it's fingers crossed for all of us, we're really hoping to see you guys at nationals! i cant think of anything we could do to help, but if there is anything you guys can think of that might help even the slightest, be sure to let us know! and to all the other teams who are facing the possibility of not bein able to go to houston, we'll keep our fingers crossed for everyone.. I dont even know when to expect a decision from our school on the matter :(

They won't

Oh you never know, we might be able to go.... ;)

That really sucks you guys, and I feel really sorry for you. Our district has been rather quiet on everything, they aren't cancelling any trips, out of the country or inside the country. Actually, I just got back from a trip to Chicago (unfortunately we didn't get to visit FIRST :( ) I just figure that as long as the district doesn't say anything, we aren't saying anything to them. Granted, the district really doesn't know we exist, and I have never seen an administrator even look at our robot (except for an assembly when we got to pick up a ball with last year's bot).

Anyway, I hope you can find a way to make it, even if it means going on your own. And remember, if your parents call you in for "personal reasons" the district has to honor that as excused. At least, our does...

Ah war...
 

Well as this so called war(aka finishing off daddies business) is going on we all think of the worst but in reality there is nothing to fear but the thought of fear itself.

Although the tought of terrorists attacks scare me, i' m not really worried. i think if there would be an attack on the US, it would be on a FIRST competiton. I mean FIRST is extremely cool, and a big thing to us, but for those "non-robotics folks", FIRST is like a big geel convention. So i'm not so worried, because i think that we'll be fine, and we'll have a great time, just like at regionals. We acutally got to regionals on wednesday night, when we first attacked IRAQ, and we still competeted, and got into our own world.

*Plus we can mow down terrorists with our robots!!! (j/k)

If teams do have problems with the war, which i hope does not happen, i hope it happens b4 the final teams list comes out. b/c if a team takes a spot then is not allowed to go it would be unfair to the teams that did not get the spot. but i really do hope that all teams that qualify are allowed to go.

war isn't the only thing we hafta worry about now...
the number of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is almost doubling every day. the current count is at 70 deaths and over 2000 cases reported world wide.