Quote:
Originally Posted by smcmahon
FRC 2656, Quasics, has been competing since 2008. Due to funding, we traditionally play one Regional per year. We have never advanced to the FIRST Championship, though we got close in 2010, losing in the Pittsburgh Regional finals to an 1114/63/117 alliance!!
Our funding has improved a lot over the past two seasons and I feel we may be ready to think about traveling to compete in a second Regional.
Thing is... we've never traveled before. I have no idea what sort of logistics are involved in all that, when to start planning ahead or how much funding it could take.
I humbly request some first-time-traveler advice: - best practices
- tips/tricks
- things you wish you knew the first time you traveled
- kids-per-chaperone ratios
- transportation (we'd likely start with a Regional within driving distance)
- how the cost is taken care of (travel fee for the students?)
- resources for FRC travel (not necessarily to the Championship)
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As 4901 grew this past year, we learned a few quick lessons.
-The first year, when I could count the kids and mentors on pretty much one hand, people told me their travel plans for the important questions (are you going, are your parents going, are you staying with them or the shared boys/girls room, do you need a ride, do you understand the 4-H code of conduct, etc...). For Palmetto, we included on our travel document to email the team's account. They interpreted that as "email Billfred", "text Billfred", "tell Billfred at the meeting", "post the answers on Trello"...yeah. For Orlando, we set up a Google form that fed into a spreadsheet and I set up a "if it's not there, I'm not paying it attention" policy. That latter bit helps greatly.
-Get a handle on your organization's policies regarding medications. Do the kids hold on to them? Does a teacher or chaperone have to hold onto them? Does it depend on the medicine? Know this now.
-All of our college students fill out the paperwork to be 4-H volunteers, so our ratio is borderline ridiculous. But make sure you know your organization's policy regarding male/female chaperones. That almost burned us going to Championship our rookie season, since our usual female volunteer was traveling another way.
-With 4901, we figure out the tab for hotels and the kids pay us. (Thats number of kids over total rooms needed, no "girl tax" if fewer of them travel. Same formula is applied separately for mentors.) Because we almost always caravan, and some parents drive their own kids, but some drive other kids, and so on, gas money is handled on a per-car level. If someone is towing a trailer for us, we kick them extra gas money.
-For each trip, we advise the kids in advance of the planned meals--whether that's a cookout in the parking lot (which we do with 1293 at Palmetto; if you've got a cook on your team, this is ridiculously cheap), breakfast in a mentor's hotel room (everyone kicked in five bucks for cereal, water, and bananas), dinner out (make sure they leave with cash or a card in their pockets for this), or fast food on the highway (which is decided per car).
-Get EVERY cell phone number in the group. You may want to set up a GroupMe chat for announcements and notifications on the move; we use it because it supports plain old SMS for those using dumbphones on our team.