[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Team 461 has a few policies on regional attendance.

1) They have to sign a form stating their commitment to the regionals they're chosen for. This means that they can't back out the day before if they decide they have a hot date and building doesn't sound quite as fun. Sometimes lack of commitment rubs off onto competition. Members of the team fill out a form about which competitions they're able/want to attend in week 2 or 3, and give it to a team leader. From there, the decision is based on various participation factors.

2) Attendance is a huge issue. On our team 80% of meetings is what you are required to have in order to attend competition. If you have a local regional, team members should be allowed to attend that at will, becuase it is no cost to the team in terms of hotels or transportation. If you have a distance regional, you have a different story. Those with good attendance are the ones that know what is going on. They get first pick on which competitions. You should have a field team (driver, operator, human player) of 3, and those 3 can also help fix in the pits. In addition to them you should have at least 1 mechanic student and 1 electrics student and 1 programmer working in the pits. A pit crew of 10 isn't too shabby.

3) Tell them they can't compete if they don't dedicate themselves. Sometimes that's all it takes...