For the past two years (not this year) we stayed at Days Inn Suites Main Gate East, which is right next to "Old Town" and of course very near a great many fast food places. The adults trusted us and we could go out anytime to anywhere we wanted pretty much, they just got mad if we didn't make any scheduled meetings. I can tell you from experience, a One Liter Pepsi can go a long way at 8am in the morning on the sunday after competition when you have till the park closes (lasted me till 6pm when I finally needed some other nourishment plus several packets of bad tasting sugar):D

Well, Mr. Thompson (long time, no see), my thoughts:

Curfews are good for mitigating liability and keeping track of the students, but on the other hand, we were free to roam durring the day (assuming we had no responsibilites). Too, tired kids can cause all sorts of problems (e.g. Brent driving) so perhaps specifial restrictions for drivers to ensure they are well rested.

Also, while I though that perhaps a senior priveladge (s.p.?) letting seniors stay out later would be nice, but they may be coming back to a room with other people in it. To rebut that arguement, what says they will be asleep?

Your thoughts?

Hey, Dets! Good to see you around.
I think you are right about kids being in the room but not sleeping. Different curfews for seniors might have been a problem with team morale too. You don't really want to single some people out for special rights on a team. At lest not on age alone. I've never been a big fan of "senior privalege" anyway.
Don't tell anyone but we'll probably go with a later curfew next year. Or at least one time when team has to be back at the hotel and a later one for in the room so that members can unwind in the pool etc. But that's still to be determined.
This topic has been very helpful to us in thinking about how to do things next year. Thanks to all who replied.

Our team hada curfew anywhere between 11 - 11:30 PM. all though the drivers and human player had to be in a weee bit earlier as to ensure we got proper rest for the important days to come. To Be truthful though me, the drive squad and human player stayed up with the rest of the team till curfew. Thankfully we were not mis behaving enough to have our curfew reduced. :)

LOL Taping?!

That's pretty funny... anyone can sneak under a piece of tape right?

Or were they doing something far more annoying? I can only imagine. lol.

Really, bah, who cares, I wouldn't feel like being out after dark anyway.

Only problem is, unless I don't have anything to do, it takes me an eternity to fall asleep IF I TRY!

*shrug* I can only say the outcome depends on how my teammates will/would act. I am a really mature person alone, but if there's someone I know, I'll be tempted to act stupid......

And thus the 'bad' things happen.

LOL.... my late night sleep could have nasty effects waaaaaay before the nationals....

Example: They try the new program I made and it makes the bot do stupid things... whoops typo!

The tape connects the door and the doorpost. The trick is not getting out it is putting the tape back on the outside of the door from the inside of the room so that no one knows you left.

The tape is usually masking tape. Then you rip it a tiny bit so that when the door is opened, it rips the rest of the way.

Our team had to sign medical release forms that removed responsibility from the teachers and school district (it's a district-wide thing). Last year one person did get hurt... they were leaving one of the rooms and the hotel door closed on their thumb. It got pretty swollen so they took them to the hospital. Nothing was broken.

But... really, we didn't go out a whole lot after 12. We did wander between the rooms, but we had practically the entire floor to ourselves. We did note which rooms weren't ours and were careful to keep quiet. Our driver went to bed early voluntarily.

Heck, even the mentors went for a 1 o'clock swim :D :D

The 1997 National Competition was our second year going to Orlando.

We had midnight curfew for all the students, with room checks at random times afterwards. The rule was the students had to be IN their rooms - no one ever said anything about being asleep. A few insomniac students decided to start a midnight poker game. This was soon followed by the brilliant idea "hey let's get 'Engineer X' (name withheld to protect the guilty) - I'll bet he has cash to lose!"

Step forward to about 2:30am. The lead teacher is making rounds, and comes to the door. Finds out that a poker game is going on, with full participation by one of the "adults" (heh!), and four of five students are down to their last five dollars of spending cash. The teacher yells at Engineer X for setting a bad example. Engineer X points out that he is up $60 and offers to split the pot. Engineer X learns that this is the WRONG response.

This was followed by the right response, which was: they were looking for a loophole in the rules, while carefully avoiding thinking about the INTENT of the rules [to make sure they were safe, and well rested for the competition in the morning]. When the students brought up the idea of the poker game, they could have just been told "No, don't do that, go to sleep" which would have made no impact and promptly been forgotten. Or they could learn that "beating the system" does not always mean that you win. And they could learn it in a way that they might remember for a while.

Lesson learned #1: "Engineer" is NOT automatically synonymous with "Chaperone"

Lesson learned #2: There is always more than one way to teach life lessons.

Lesson learned #3: Chris still owes me $20.


-dave

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I am always more aged than I should be, and less wise than I would like to be.

Our curfew has been lax (or non-existent) in previous years, but last year we had an 11'o'clock curfew because the teacher for the school we are parternered with insisted on it. The rule was always be at the hotel at a reasonable time, and as long as everyone behaves theres no official curfew. Unfortuneatly, we miss out on the swimming every year because of school board rules. Kinda silly, especially when you consider not being able to swim decently in Florida is synonomous with a death wish anyway.

While many of you have disdain for curfews they are there for a reason. Your parents have entrusted us with your safety when that trust is broken and something bad happens to you then bad things can happen to the whole team.
We X-Cats have been in FIRST from the beginning and have done alot of good things during those years but all it takes a an angry parent with a liability lawsuit because their kid decided to have some late night fun that got them hurt or in trouble and all those good things go away forever.
That's just not worth it and it's not fair to the other kids on the team.

Our team last year had an 11pm curfew but lights out at 1am I do believe, I may be wrong though but its about that. This, although seeming silly at first, was a good idea because it allowed the teachers to know that nobody had been hurt, kidnapped, or left behind somewhere that day. Also it was a very good idea a while back because our team use to have a lot of girls and guys on other teams liked us and those guys liked to follow us(*hint* although flattering we make fun of most of you). So our teachers had to make sure A.) a girl who gave the wrong impression to some was not anywhere inappropriate(ie. guys room, even though innocent) and B.) to give the girls an excuse to get away from the guys that would not leave.
By 11 the parks were all closed and you should be back to ur hotel, if not something must have been wrong was our chaperones mentality. Afterwards though we were allowed to go get food, with permission, but for the most parts stayed in our rooms and called eachother or communicated via morse code:) It wasn't a bad thing and nobody really complained but I guess our teachers trusted us more than most because we didn't get taped in.
Personally I think curfews are a good idea, because we know most would stay out all night and fall asleep at the competition without them. Although I am happy that I will not be put under any of these restrictions this year because I am a mentor we will be suggesting to the chaperones though that a curfew be put in place.

~SHANA~
P.S. Go team 1011

If championship moves to our backyard, team wants to spend the night, mentors want to skip the expense. Wondering what Florida teams did...

Ahhh the memories

One word: IHOP

Nighttime breakfast is the best kind :D

hehe