I thought this thread was dead, but its been revived.. we know Powers is sorry for what he said, and said so himself

Just some frustration we had and he happend to vent in the wrong place

As for fundraising.. we have now found ways around it, so we will go around it. I vow never ( while I'm at 710 ) to have the same problem we had this year. WE sent representatives to Nats and we learned a lot from vet teams, and it'll be a lot better next year.

We know 212, you have it rough.. I talked to you guys a lot at nats your darned cool and I hope you do well again next year. Atleast your school lets you use their shop, I don't really understand why a lot of schools are so anal about FIRST, when all its doing is making the school and district look better.

But then again, who am I to question, according to them, I'm just a silly lil student lol.. ohh well world aint fair is it?

The reason were not allowed to fundraise is becuase of miami-dade regulation (our schools county). A year or two back a teacher in another school from our district embezzeled about $15,000 and since then teachers arent allowed to fundraise in order to avoid situations like that. The reason we arent allowed to say our schoools name at all is so we cant claim were affiliated with them - which we could then 'demand' money for. Also, becuase of the new rules robotics is a club, not team, and all money (in order to actually get to us) must be given to the robotics booster club; if its given to the school they dont have to give it to us. Its really complicated for no reason at all.

As for our tools, they werent purchased in particular for the robotics team, but rather for the class offered as part of the school curriculum. Although we are very lucky to have those machines nearby, we wouldnt object to having actual money to get materials and especially after this year professioanal help becuase all our seniors (who compose the bulk of the team) are gtraduating.

Thnx to all you who notice us, and how far weve gotten with our little robot.

x0x0x - ashz

*drops head to hand*

Sorry. I have heard of another situation with a teacher nearly prosecuted for embezzling like that. The school didn't stop fundraising tho.

I don't understand not being allowed to say your school's name cuz that would mean you could demand money. Reminds me of another team I know - a press release mentioning the school and suddenly they were getting support from the school.

I've heard about CA schools having to give the money to ASB I think it was, and the school gets 50%. I've heard the easy solution is to get your own 501c3 - you can raise your own money and put it in your own account.

this is a little bit off topic but i didn't want to start a new thread..
 

If you want to talk about your school=STUPID than you should hear about my school.

A little background info first......
I am the only one from my team at my school. And my school is VoTech
My school never herd of FIRST until I started talking about it, and i got the team to come in last year for a talk, to about 15 students not including me because i was talking an English final.
I am in the CNAP (Computer Network Administration Program) program its a Microsoft program thats offered in (i think) only 5 other schools in the US.
My school offers no AP classes at all.

Now to the reason my school=STUPID. I am a sophomore, like I said I am the only one from my team at my school, so there is no one to understand when I talk about FIRST or my team. My school has a six day attendance policy, which means if you miss six days in a marking period you fail all of your classes(unless it is for medical reasons etc..) if you miss six days in one marking period you have one chance to get your grades back, you have to not miss a single day for any reason(other than medical etc..). if you don't miss a day you get your old grades back. but one missed day in the next marking period you loose your grades again(unless its a good reason).
Now there hasn't been many people at my school affected by the policy because most have been able to fight the reasons they were out.
Heres where my problem enters.
during the 3rd making period we had two regionals, thats 4 days missed, i had also missed 2 other days because of some problems(i know this could be used against me but i really couldn't go to school and i didn't think the days would hurt me) so there was 6 days now I would have had no problem not missing anymore days the next marking period but Nat's fell right at the start of this (the 4th) marking period. So I couldn't make up the days I missed cause of the regionals.
I did have an agreement with my school to have the days count as a Field trip but because of the war my school district canceled all out of state trips, and there isn't a comp in Delaware, so the agreement was dropped, I had a choice go to Nat's or loose my grades, what would you do? I went to Nat's, came back and I received my report card and I have a 0.0 GPA as of now. I have had talks with the school officials and there is nothing they can/want to do.
The leader of my team has offered to talk to my school, but since the school has to be this bad about a honers student missing school than I don't want to return next year.
I am leaving the school now, I'm going to the school that is about 185yards from my front door and has one other team member there, they have agreed to get my grades from the school I am at this year and use them for next year.

thats my story of why my school=STUPID
Sorry if the story isn't written to well I am sorta upset about having to leave my computer program because it is such a great opportunity for me.
I didn't post this for any one to feel sorry for me or anything, I just had to sorta vent how I feel I also wondered..

Has anyone else had any problems like this from their school?

that sounds a little wack. the 6 days isnt your school fault tho, thats a state set law. I am not shure where you are from but in florida its 9. They should not count days that are school sponsored events. When we attend regionals or nationals we get counted absent but they dont take it off are total of 9. so if your school sponsors your team you should go to the school board and present a case of not taking off your 6 days

Our school has the same rule, however it didn't affect us because we only missed a few days, ( and I'm not sure if its fail or just certain percentage points lopped off your grade ) and it also counted as field trip, we didn't have to worry about nats because we didn't go

The other school with us can't miss more than 2 days of school period.. major trouble if they do ( in a row I mean )

so thus the reason we have to fly everywhere makign it all more expensive

also :: edit ::

I highly suggest you write a letter to FIRST mayb they can help you out.. never know mayb woody flowers/dean kamen will ruffle some feathers if the school sponsor thing doesn't work

Missing school...
 

Yeah, a lot of schools have ludicrous policies when it comes to stuff like that. In my school you can miss no more than 10 days but it also counts if you misscertain classes becuase every class is 2 hrs and they count hours. I know i have over 70 already and obviously i didnt miss 70 days of school, but like becuase of the way its arranged thats how it works. But i guess the one good thing about my school is after a certain amount of absences you get a note on your report card saying the credit may be withheld, but its up to the teachers to decide so most of the times if the student is passing with decent grades, and does all the work etc. its not a problem.

Hehe... that's what we call "exempted absences"... They don't count towards your 12 allowable absences, so long as it's a school function and you make up your work.

I highly suggest you write a letter to FIRST mayb they can help you out.. never know mayb woody flowers/dean kamen will ruffle some feathers if the school sponsor thing doesn't work [/b][/quote]



I would have done that or got my mentor from my team to talk to my school, but I really don't want to go to a school that wont support something I love so much, I would also rather go to a school with other team members in it, I have given up on that school and I have found many may better things about the school I will be attending next year.

changing schools always works, Our school has given up on keeping tabs on Seniors however. If you miss school and actually have a real reason i think they are more relieved that ur missing for something and not just skipping. Yep, our senior class is slackarific, and the majority of our team, you guys better step it up next year... but im sure you'll be fine

This may be true, but doesn't solve the problem at hand, the problem is you have F's (unless something as changed and you are not telling because you don't feel its relevant ) in everyone of your class's... Having a problem like that is very serious concerning your future. It may be hard to get into a college where you have an entire semister of F's

I was just giving suggestions on how to help your situation. Mayb the right move is to switch schools later. Or you can try to arouse more interest in your school about FIRST. But try to take the 2nd part like a man and get those grades fixed!

I have got my teachers to write my grades down for me so if there is any reason that I have to show them than I have them.
once I leave the school I am at they have to send my correct grades with me since I am switching to a different district.
That means when a collage looks at my grades for this year they will see my correct grades. my problems with the school are for the most part solved, its just the fact that they did this to me for no real reason and i am much better off at a new school, yes my report cards from this school will have I's(Incomplete) as my letter grade but i really don't care because it wont affect anything except how i feel towards the school. I have just learned just to let it go and make it through this year and next year it will behind me and everything will be ok.
the collage classes that I take now have already been told about my grades and they don't care as long a I get letters from my teachers. So every thing is going to be fine now I will pass this year and move on to a new school.

i agree with the people who are saying that you don't need a ton of money to be a successful team. it's better to keep your robot simple instead of putting all these hi-tech things in it that don't even help much. that "driving tomorrow's technology" award gives many teams the false idea that hi-tech is the way to go.

i was in the pits for most of the nationals and people kept coming up to me saying stuff like "our robot has 3 optical sensors and a gyroscope and 50 self-correcting autonomous programs". and i would say "our robot hits the wall really fast and it's strong" and some of them would kinda look at me as if to say "no expensive gismos?"

but we still got to the finals without all that stuff, and a relatively inexpensive robot

My school doesn't give my team any money, which really sucks. One thing I noticed last year is that the choir was supposed to go to a competition in Hawaii. They fundraised and scraped together the money to go, but the administrators mysteriously went along. My problem is that our school is one of the top in the district with one of the highest budgets, but we struggle for sponsorship money.

well those things come in the kit, and the autonomous programs have nothing to do with how expensive your robot is.

Those things even tho supervised by a mentor on my team, were completely added by students ( after playing around with the edu bot however.. we discoverd it was 2x faster to get up in auto mode with out line tracking )

I also agree that you can have an amazing robot w/ out a big budget, I felt we competed well and thats what was upsetting about going to nationals

Only thing powers complained about was not being able to pay a registration fee.

Nothing to do with actual robot performance due to lack of funds