Logging attendance

[Potatoes]

Hello, I have some questions about how your teams log attendance.

2014 was our rookie year and we had some organizational issues, so we were wondering whether it's worth it to keep track of how many hours members spend at meetings. Do you keep track of hours, or just attendance? Do you have any benefits for members that put in more time (awards, priority for team trips, etc)?

We were also thinking of using a fingerprint scanner to make a clock in/clock out system, but this would be more of a software/electrical project to keep busy during the summer than a practical solution.

Thanks in advance from all of Team 5136!

[EricH]

1197 uses the paper method. There's a clipboard with a sheet by the door into the shop. Students sign in and sign out as they go through the door. Tracks both attendance and hours, dirt cheap to implement, and relatively easy to remember because it's practically staring you in the face as you exit.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by EricH

1197 uses the paper method. There's a clipboard with a sheet by the door into the shop. Students sign in and sign out as they go through the door. Tracks both attendance and hours, dirt cheap to implement, and relatively easy to remember because it's practically staring you in the face as you exit.

We do this as well. Students have an weekly hour requirement (if they don't sign in and out properly, they don't get their hours), and it's one of the considerations for choosing drivers.

[BEN35678]

In the 2014 season we used a timeclock software that was an opensource program. A laser barcode scanner was connected, so that when the students would come in they would scan their barcode that would be located on the wall, which would clock them in and the the same when they leave to clock out.

For this upcoming season we are switching the timeclock software so that we can have more control over functionality and tracking of the hours. Additionally we are replacing the barcode scanner with a RFID reader so we just have to bring our id's with us.

It may not be as simple as the good old pen and paper but we seem to find it interesting since its something different

[BriteBacon]

We use an online time tracker. It is used to check hours, but since we don't have any hour requirements we use it to make sure everybody has left when we leave for the night.

[Koko Ed]

We have a sign in sheet that everyone, including the mentors (though to be honest I don't know why since I pay for my own travel) are required to do in order to record hours as part of the criteria to travel.

[safiq10]

this is interesting mind sharing?

[safiq10]

Originally Posted by BEN35678

In the 2014 season we used a timeclock software that was an opensource program. A laser barcode scanner was connected, so that when the students would come in they would scan their barcode that would be located on the wall, which would clock them in and the the same when they leave to clock out.

For this upcoming season we are switching the timeclock software so that we can have more control over functionality and tracking of the hours. Additionally we are replacing the barcode scanner with a RFID reader so we just have to bring our id's with us.

It may not be as simple as the good old pen and paper but we seem to find it interesting since its something different

This is intresting mind sharing the software?

[safiq10]

This year we used tracked the days that members would come instead of hours. The system we used was great except, we would designated someone to sign people in (he or she tend to forget and we would miss days) and then someone could easily go in and change the attendance, also some member would be at a meeting for 20 min and then go for an hour and comeback for another 2 hours. So it became hard to track

[Jon Stratis]

Mentors log students hours after each meeting. We have requirements for traveling with the team and for lettering - you want to make sure those at competition were around enough to know what's going on, and lettering serves as an additional incentive to be present even more.

[notmattlythgoe]

We wrote a login program that uses a finger print reader to log people in and out.

[itsjustmrb]

Team 4063 has used http://www.mytimestation.com/ for the last 2 years. We called and received a free account since we are non profit.

The time station app runs on an old Iphone and we can run several reports and export to excel for processing.

The app allows you to print your own QR Codes and we print them on the back of the student name tags.

Mr. B.

[M. Lillis]

There is a really good spreadsheet that a team posted on CD a while ago. I cannot find the post, but our team has used it for the past 3 years. Everyone gets a password and just types the password into a green cell, and it serves as the clock-in/clock-out. I don't have my flash drive on me right now, but I will upload the file when I find it.

EDIT: I found the CD thread on this topic http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=98413

Here is the DL link for the sheet: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2490?

You can use badges if you want, but you don't have to.

[tr6scott]

We have been using this one for the last 3 years.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2490

In the "native" download it tracks hours as the metric. Our Varsity letter requirement is based on days attended of "Mandatory" meetings. I have added another sheet to the workbook, that calculates this data, based on the log data.

PM if you would like to have me send you my workbook. Right now it has all of this years data, and I would need to scrub the student names from the sheet, prior to sharing.

If your metric is hours though, right out of the box, the file above works great.

[Libby K]

1923 works in a storefront space (not our school), so for us the attendance log is a safety thing as well as a team involvement requirement.

We use a paper method- sign in and out at the door, etc. It works well for us, especially since we have a parent chaperone sitting at the front desk when we're meeting.

Since we're in a non-school location, we also have rules about coming and going. The chaperone has to make eye contact with the parent/sibling picking you up (can't just leave to walk over to McDonald's or something), and only students over 18 may drive themselves to the build site.

Hours, like many other teams have stated here, are looked at when applying to travel with the team and when students apply for leadership positions. However, it's not the only thing we take into account. A student could be there from 9am to 9pm on Saturday but not have contributed -- it's about the noted effort you put in during your time there as well.

For us, paper method works just fine. We tally people's hours at the end of the week & add them up when we're looking for that information at various points in the year. We just prefer not to overcomplicate it.