[Rockey]

Our head coach from previous years was unable to commit his entire time this year. He agreed to mentor on a limited basis. Sense then he has redefined his role many times from not wanting to be involved at all to requiring every detail be done his way. He is the tech Ed teacher so the rooms that we use are his; the equipment is in his area. He has held the room and machines and even our robot hostage, that we cannot touch the robot until all of his demands are met. We have attempted to talk to him on numerous occasions. He can never seem to hear us. Logic appears to have gone out the window and been replaced by power and control issues. In theory some of his ideas would work, if we had a larger team, with more students and mentors. It seems that he has forgotten that the mentors we have are volunteering their time and that it is supposed to be fun learning experience for the students.
He wants every part designed in CAD, but we only have a few students that know how to use CAD. We have never used CAD in the past, (when he was the head coach) but we’ve always built it just fine. We don’t even have anything ready to build because we have spent all our time on CAD.
He is also demanding that the room be spotless every night. we understand that it is important to keep a clean and organized work area, but we have kept the room clean.The only things out on the tables is something that is currently being worked on. Before the room had to be spotless we had gotten complements on how clean the room was from a teacher that shares part of the room for a class (we were not very clean or organized when he was the head coach).


It is now week 3 and we have very basic cad drawings done and have just started cutting the frame. But because things have not gone his way, he has locked up the frame and we cannot make progress on that. The students come in with their heads hung low. It has become more of a job than a fun experience. Some mentors have left because of the situation.
He has indicated many times that we will do things his way or we will go to competition with a box full of parts. For the first time, our team is in a better position financially and we have more parents ready to help. But we are farther behind than ever before.
We understand that if word gets out we risk losing potential sponsors and future mentors.
We have started talking to district administration and the school principal, but if things do not happen we will be forced to move away from the school and try to build the robot in a mentors garage.