Originally Posted by Mike Martus

I have been watching this thread to see how it worked out without throwing in my 2 cents. Well here is my 2 cents.....

All teams need clear written enforced rules in the form of a Team Handbook. The formation of the handbook should be made up of "Best Practices", elements from other handbooks that work and most important input from the entire team. When we talk about input students MUST realize that there are school rules and corporate rules that must be followed. The handbook is a combination of all of these in a format that the entire team can live with.

The Team Handbook must also be a "Living Document" that changes and meets the current needs of the team. It is a very important element to keep it appropriate and up to date.

On our team we have more girls than boys, and yes relationships do develop during the course of the year. We stress that at events, on trips and at work-sites team rules be followed. These include traveling in groups of a min. of three persons, no hand holding or displays of affection aimed specifically at your boyfriend/girlfriend (many hug often when greeting parents and friends - this is acceptable).

Our rule is very simple - it should not appear that you are boyfriend/girlfriend at any time. Each team member has a job to do and is expected to do it as professional as possible at all times. We have many other rules that you can review by downloading the White Paper that is our team handbook. There are many examples of handbooks in the white papers section.

I know that this next comment will upset many students, but here it is.

The adult leaders are responsible for you and your actions at all events associated with the robotics program. As responsible leaders putting their careers on the line at every event they need to be very careful to protect ALL team members. The adults will have to answer for any situation that occurs on a trip or working on the robot. I will not spell out the situations as I think you can use your own imagination. This includes safety, relationships between students and parents or other adults that assist the team. Since the adults are in charge they are allowed to make some rules you do not agree with in an effort to protect the program. The key word is "protect" and most adults know how to balance these protection rules.

My 2 cents.

Originally Posted by Beth Sweet

Well, I've been on both the student and mentor side of this argument and fought very hard for both.

When I was in hs, 2 of my good friends on the team were dating, and they were still in that "first stage" of dating where it's just like, awwww, we're together! The mentors tried to just say something here or there at first, but at one of the competitions, the whole thing blew up.

One of our mentors who had recently joined us from another team sat down with all of us girls and we had a little talk. (I'm hoping that I remember this correctly, it was a few years ago) She told us about how on her old team, there had been a little issue with relationships, and that was why she and the other mentors were so cautious. Apparently while on a robotics trip, two of the seniors had gotten a little bit too "affectionate" and the young lady ended up pregnant. At that point, she had to put off college etc.

From the student standpoint, I get it. You're getting into the whole dating thing and you want to take full advantage of just being together for a weekend. But you also have to look at it from the other standpoint. You are in a program that is very professional. If your mom and dad worked together, they probably wouldn't be going around kissing and holding hands all day, would they? Probably not, because that's just not accepted in the professional world. Through this program, you're basically in the professional world. You're working with professionals, representing your school and sponsor companies, it's kind of like an audition for the workplace.

At competitions, as I'm sure you already know, it's almost like you stop being high schoolers for a while and you're on this whole other level above the peers you left back at school. And they hold you to that too, your mentors, the other teams, the VIP's watching you from their little room. Because of this, our kids are expected to act more like they would in the professional workplace than they would in high school.

So I guess what I'm saying is, we expect FIRST kids to be at a level above other kids. As such, your mentors expect that of you on every level.