Re: Team Governance
 

Our team is set up on the principle of executive committee consisting of student leaders (president and 2 vice presidents), parent group leaders, and advisors. The main decisions and efforts at keeping the team moving forward are generally made by this body. I was the team president this year, and my father was the parent group leader. As student leader, I generally coordinate the student and equipment end of whatever event we are going to participate in, the logistics and supervision responsibilities usually go to the advisors, and fund raising (sponsorships) and other booster activities go to the parent group. During the build season, we employed a group based project structure. I was the project manager. I was in charge of the entire robot's production from beginning to end, including brainstorming, design, prototyping, manufacturing, and assembly. I often received valuable advice from much more experienced adult mentors on how to be effective at my job. Below me, we have sub group leaders, who head up production of the various machine components, and work closely with me in order for me to keep robot production on track. These are generally 3rd and 4th year students. Below them, we have sub-group members, who learn how the process of robot construction works while working to create a viable component for the robot with an experienced team member. This is the system that we have employed for my four years on the team, and it has worked very well.

Re: Team Governance
 

Was there something objectionable about what I asked or not?

Re: Team Governance
 

I just came across this discussion and found it interesting.

Question for Tim and Not2B - I presume both of your teams are sponsored by schools. Do you then have a teacher or other school staff member who is the responsible party, essentially the chief chaperone? Our school board would not give us permission to be a group, much less travel, without a school district employee being in charge.

We are a smaller team, about 20 kids max. Much of our decision-making can be done Town Hall style, where everyone gets to put in an opinion, and consensus is achieved. We have two teachers that have the primary responsibility for organization and control. One of them is technical, the other focuses on Chairmans and other activities. We have a couple engineering mentors from our sponsoring corporations, and they are mentors, not chaperones. (Although they are adults and take adult reponsibilities when dealing with kids - for example, if they saw kids engaging in inappropriate behavior, they would not hesitate to get involved just because it "wasn't their job description" to discipline.) We have a couple of parents, myself included, who are actively involved in robot design and build, and are classified as "parent mentors". Most of the rest of the parents are involved as boosters and supporters in a variety of ways - fund raising, transportation, chaperones, food, etc.

Re: Team Governance
 

Nothing objectionable at all from what I read. In FIRST, there's no such thing as too many 1/4-20 bolts, too many bottles of caffeinated beverage, and too much knowledge from others.

Re: Team Governance
 

Yep - that's about right. We have 1 teacher from the school who takes care of all the school red tape, and acts as the head shaperone. We've never asked the school about running without the teacher, nor would I want to. The non-parent mentors and the parent mentors also have different rules. Example: I don't have a student on the team, so I can't drive students around. But a parent can drive students around.

And of course, if the non-parent mentors see something dangerous, or think a student is going to do something stupid, we would obviously stop them or talk to them. I would hope that just because someone isn't an offical chaperone doesn't mean that wouldn't help out. Not being a chaperone just means I can go to dinner with my wife after a day of robots in Atlanta without worring about the students.

On the other hand, I just took the 8 hour night shift "chaperoneing" our 24 hour relay for life tent. So we do help out.

So when is 1188 going to win a chairman's award? I've been waiting... :)

Re: Team Governance
 

I did not find it objectionable.

Re: Team Governance
 

Do you think that others would, and if so, why?

Thanks

Paul

P.S.: Sorry to keep pushing this, I don't mean to be aggresive (though that may be how it comes off).

Re: Team Governance
 

Paul, why don't you email me at jbeatty@usfirst.org and we can chat about your concerns, rather than in this forum so we don't get off track of the thread.

Re: Team Governance
 

Our team meets twice a week in the off season, one long meeting to work on the robot primarily and a short lunch meeting for administrative details. There is a faculty advisor and he handles the administrative meeting and is required to travel with the team on road trips. The school also has a policy of "approved mentors" who go through a background check, fingerprinting, and TB check. Only approved mentors can work alone with the kids. Last year there were 3 approved mentors working with the team, my wife and I and one other all in technical capacities.

It sounds like your team is about the same size as ours in terms of students but you have more adult involvement. As head mentors, my wife and I worked with the club 7 days a week for the approximately 7 weeks prior to ship. Since we were the only ones with keys to the lab, we were the first to arrive and the last to leave. The other tecnical mentor had job responsibilities and was the when he could. We have 3 parents who spent a little time working on the robot. One of my requirements to compete next year, aside from having the money up front, is more adult involvement both technical mentors and parental support.

I agree with Not2B, by the time I spend all day at the competition with the students and the robot, I want to relax a little. If I saw them doing something inappropriate, I'd weigh in and stop them. However, I don't want the added responsibility to try to follow them around and keep them out of trouble or entertain them. This year during the build I spent too much time trying to keep them in line while trying to produce a robot. I feel those activities are better handled by a parent. 300 hours building the robot and 10 hour days at the competition site are quite enough for me, thank you.

Another reason I don't want the responsibility of being a chaperone is I don't want the liability exposure. I don't have a lot of confidence that the school would vigorously try to protect me should a student do something stupid and get hurt and an irate parent try to sue me. And I have a pretty good idea if the stupidity students are capable of when on road trips. You can't be everywhere at once and things can and do happen.

Re: Team Governance
 

Usually A Department Head works great for us

ex:;
Mechanical
Electrical/Programming/Controls
Animation/Other

They all report to the Overall Caption

he brings issues to the table between him, the head adult on our team, and our head engineer on our team.

Thats how things work, and it works fine

Re: Team Governance
 

Community-

This seems to be winding down in a good way. Thanks to all who've posted helpful information here. Team 1719 and I appreciate your input.

Thanks again for your thoughts,
Paul Dennis
Team 1719

Re: Team Governance
 

Actually this post does not reflect the majority of team 1719. Of the 15 original members of the team, only 2 agreed with the decision of this individual to place this posting.

Re: Team Governance
 

Our rookie team this year was organized by our teacher-mentor and although we successfully created a working robot, it was not a student-based team, in my opinion. It's true that dire times called for dire measures and he had to step in to help run the team. He divided our team very structurally creating so many different sub-levels, which I don't think worked 100% effectively.

Hopefully next year, our team will strive to be more student-run and will be able to take 100% responsibility for our robot and its performance :) .

I'm trying to search around on different structures for a team. This topic is really helping thanks ^^.

~Elaine