Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Well, I have to disagree somewhat. We have the grade requirements (not that high) on top of the meeting requirement. Now both have been set low enough to take into account the previously mentioned issues. But, at least for our school, we would have people who join just to go to the events, and maybe show up for one or two meetings. IMHO, this should be set from team-to-team, as the case may be different depending on region, city, main religion, etc.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

In order to participate in our team, you must be passing all your classes and have a certain GPA (I think it's 2.5). We also have requirements for going to events. The administration only allows 10 students per teacher, so we're limited to 20 per event. Our student board decides who goes on the trips, and those who don't to meetings that often are unlikely to make the cut.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Doesn't FIRST come first? ;)

I suppose 766 works pretty differently from most teams. We don't pay for team travel other than mentors and advisors (all students pay their own way) and we don't have district-set limits on team field trips, so there are no restrictions on who can come to which events. Consequently, there are no requirements for attendance during the build season. If there were, we'd probably have fewer than ten people officially on the team; we need to count relatively uninvolved people to even claim a 20-person membership. The only real requirement is to have submitted the team medical form so that we know who to call if someone gets hurt.

We also don't have any grade requirements. Our team's attitude has always been that we'll take involvement at any level, high or low. If you want to devote every waking second to robotics, fail your classes, and flip burgers after you graduate, that's fine. If you want to skip every build meeting but show up to the regionals to cop free medals, that's fine. We may not recommend either approach, but we do ultimately rely upon the student to manage their own life appropriately.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Team 852 meets for building regularly Monday-Thursday 6:30-10pm, Saturday & Sunday 10am-6pm. During the last week and a half of build, we usually work 6:30-11 M-F, and 10-10 on weekends. Granted,we work on a "Show up when you want to, leave when you want to" schedule, so nobody is required to show up for any meeting, though you need to show up to at least six meetings for a reasonable amount of time to be remotely considered as a "serious" member of the team, unless there's a valid reason why you couldn't make it.

We also don't have any hard-and-fast rules about grades, but the general consensus is that your classes come first, and at Athenian, if you're not doing well, our advisor will hear about it, and you won't be able to build until you get your act together.

We've found this works pretty well, since there's a core group that shows up fairly frequently, and then they're aided by those team members who don't show up as much.

Hope this helps!

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Heh. FIRST jokes have popped up in English class and English essays, as a close friend and team member sits close to me in English.

About the travel, our mentors do get paid travel, as do teachers, I think. The students must take care of their own. Also, our most experienced programmer is also one of the people with the least attendance. Our driver is involved almost entirely with the build season and Cal Games, as are some others. I guess that we will always have these types of people, as well as those hardcore overly dedicated types... :D We have been recruiting, but only time will tell with our new freshmen. Right now the entire tried-and-true (at least one season) "core" team consists of Juniors, not including possible freshmen.

The key resides in finding a happy balance between school and robotics. When in doubt, ask what you want to do for the rest of your life. :confused: Or try, anyway (I think I have it...)

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We mostly have parents as supervisors. We also haven't had more than 20 students attend in recent memory as a small team, so I guess that helps. :rolleyes: As for student government, we have two Co-Presidents and they share duties/responsibility.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

as of know I do a lot of work for the team. I call most of the meetings and I am a sophomore. I figure I/we have another three years to set up a team organization and make sure it doesnt stop as soon as our current sophomore year graduates. We do have a promising group of rookies (I hope) of maybe ten people currently and are hoping to recruit some more.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

The happy balance between school and robotics is 0% school and 100% robotics :rolleyes: Unfortunately that particular equilibrium comes with a few downsides, namely not graduating high school. Nonetheless, I am convinced that with enough brainstorming we can surmount this difficulty. As for your second statement, how many people of high school age really do know what they want to do for the rest of their life? Not many, I'd think, and certainly not me.

Vivek, it's funny you should say this because that's pretty much the same situation our team is in, except just replace "sophomore" with "junior", "three years" with "a year and a half" and "ten people" with "five people". We're all wondering whether there will still be a Team 766 in 2009 after most of the current members have graduated.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

You know, our(my) solution(idea that might work) currently involves getting a bunch of freshmen and training them in the ways. hopefully this works....

-vivek

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

It works. Absolutely.

I did a brief search for a wonderful comment regarding 2nd year team members becoming first year mentors. My search failed but maybe someone will find it when they read my poor reference. <apologies>

It is true. A second year team member does not have the accumulation of knowledge and hands on experience that a fourth year does - but - a second year has the beginnings. Setting up a system of training and mentoring the new team members is awesome and helps strengthen the team from the inside out. Seniors naturally worry about leaving the team and yet we find each year that because of the training and mentoring program that we continually work at, the team continues to thrive and improve as our seniors graduate and new students join the team. It's very exciting.

My suggestion is to start now. If you are small and a relatively new team, you can still start/begin. Set some short term goals and long term goals and begin to work towards them. And when frustration sets in or disappointment - take a deep breath and keep going. The work and effort you put into the team may not show immediately but it will eventually show and someday shine.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

We meet everyday, pretty much until our mentor calls it quits...That usually could be around 10:00 at night...Saturdays it would be 9 a.m. till whenever and Sundays we take the day off so our mentor and our advisors arnt murdered by their families from being away too long.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Our team actually did start this kind of system. We have Pi-tech Academy, which is our pre-season training for members who want to learn a different skill for the build season.

For the rookies, we started a First Vex (Tech) Competition Team 1676 in order to train them in the process of FIRST, designing and building the robot, as well as the necessities at competition and otherwise. Our second-year members become the mentors for this new set of rookies.

This is our second year with this team, so the second year members mentoring have prior experience in this competition. Last year, the mentors did not have previous Vex experience, but did have experience in FIRST.

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

I think the quote is much closer to "Your second year on the team is your first year as a mentor." I'm sorry, I couldn't find the direct quote, either. Maybe spotlighted posts somewhere...? I love that quote!

Re: how often does your team meet during build season?
 

Here is the build team schedual for Team 1592 during build season:

Mon-Fri.--3:30-7:00
Sat.--9:00-4:00
Sun. --1:00-whenever (usually dont start sunday work until last 2-3 weeks)

during the week it is normally those times, we will gradually start staying later as time gets closer to ship. members are not required to attend everyday, we just require (on top of fundraising moneys) 75 hours of work to travel. those 75 hours can be earned by working wit any of our subteams (build, project management, webpage, etc.). i easily earn over 300 hours so earning 75 is easy for those that participate in other activities like sports of other clubs.