Advice request: traveling for the first time

[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)

[I_AM_Clayton]

I am a student on my team so I can't give you much advice regarding hotels, chaperone to student ratio etc but I would say, Remember to bring as many replacement parts as possible for your robot. Also bring all tools you can, you may not be able to depend on other teams for support (depending on what tool you may need). Bring food along for the trip it's always nice to have something to snack on, it's especially nice for me when we drive across Missouri from St. Louis to Kansas City for the Cowtown Throwdown. (make sure to bring extra batteries) There is a thread that gives a bunch of advice on this If i can find it i'll give you the link.

[Christopher149]

857 has only ever traveled to events: we've driven anywhere from 3 hours (closest event) to ~12 hours (St. Louis / Ypsilanti-MSC), and we flew when CMP was in Atlanta (though I was a student and can't speak to the planning for that).

How far away do you plan to travel?
Keep in mind regions around you (or that you are in) which may be districts or are switching (it appears the DC Capitol region may be switching soon)
Do you plan to travel internationally?

We've carpooled and brought a trailer, we've carpooled and brought the robot and supplies in a minivan, and we've used a charter bus which brought the robot and supplies. We've chartered buses for St. Louis and for shorter distances if we bring other teams (we have ~15 students).

We typically (at least recently) have charged a fee to the students for each trip, though we do not charge for team membership.

For certain cities, make sure to book hotels early.

By the way, I'm slightly jealous of you having a local event.

[GeeTwo]

CMP this year was our first road trip (Bayou is about an hour drive from our school, so we day trip it). After we figured out the travel costs, we required each student making the trip to come up with a fraction of that. The amount could be in terms of fund raising (preferred, and many well exceeded the goal) or cash (very few took this option, but a few did).

We traveled with close to a 4:1 ratio, but 8:1 would have been adequate - it was CMP, and only one of our "full" mentors didn't make the trip, and that was because he had sea duty at the time.

Assign each room or two of students to a specific mentor, preferably same gender. Swap cell phone numbers and keep in touch!

Meals: We included the cost of meals in the travel cost. We had a hotel with a continental breakfast and dined together. Each student got a daily cash allowance for lunch ($12?).
Establish the perimeter of the event at all times. Any student going beyond these bounds must inform his/her mentor and have a buddy or three.

Transportation: If you can drive, it's certainly going to be less expensive with any sizable group. For more than a couple of hours drive, renting a bus is definitely preferable to a caravan. We shared a bus with another local team. Our team had two carloads in addition to the bus going to CMP: one truck pulling our trailer, and one car of mentors and family members. A commercial bus is safer, and the bus company should have contacts in place to replace a broken down bus should it be necessary. Plus, with a cooler, a tote full of snacks, a bathroom, and a commercial driver, you won't need to stop as often. Or round people up and take a head count as often when it's time to go.

Hotel: Since we had a commercial bus, we stayed about 20 minutes drive away; the room rates were much less expensive. For suburban and rural venues, that probably won't be a concern. Find someplace safe, not too expensive, not to seedy, in other words "family friendly". Book together, so you can be in the same wing, making it easier for mentors to keep an eye on the students.

[Ben Martin]

I've done it two ways:
- Everyone buys in to travel at the beginning of the season to help cover hotels and transportation costs for the entire team (I've had anywhere from $200-$550 student contribution depending on the team I was on).
- A laissez-faire, get-yourself-there approach. Transport to competitions is 100% parent vehicles and self-purchased flights, with 0% of hotel/transportation costs passing through the team budget. This option may not be available to some schools.

If you have great parent support, I'm a bigger fan of the second approach, since it requires less admin work, and traveling families save money since they stay in the same hotel rooms as their students--though you need to make sure you cover all your bases with the FIRST Youth Protection Program for unaccompanied students.

Getting the robot/pit equipment to competition is always a concern as well-- you either need somebody with the ability to pull a trailer (and have a trailer) or everything (including the robot) needs to be small enough to travel in whatever vehicles/buses are available.

[smcmahon]

Christopher- we are from the greater Pittsburgh area. The eastern half of Pennsylvania has been in the MAR District for a while now. Last I heard from the RPC, we are not planning to be District for 2016.

That being said, there are some amazing Regional events that I feel are within a reasonable drive from Pittsburgh. These include Buckeye (Cleveland OH), Queen City (Cincinnati OH), Greater DC (Fairfax VA), Finger Lakes (Rochester NY), and my dream Regional: Greater Toronto

----- Thanks everyone for the awesome replies. I really appreciate your experience and insight. Keep 'em coming! -----

[Lil' Lavery]

Greater DC will not exist as a regional next year, as VA/MD/DC are forming the Chesapeake District.

[Kevin Leonard]

Until 2014, Team 20 had never traveled less than 3 hours for an event.
We've done events a few different ways:

• Heavily Organized: This is the way we generally do away regionals and championships. Students pay for a fraction of travel costs, and we take a bus to the event. Students are free to come with their parents separately if they desire. Hotels for students and mentors are booked through the team, and parents generally book their own rooms.
• Partially Organized: Car Caravans, some rooms booked through the team. The students generally pay the drive of their vehicle some amount to help cover gas, and they pay for their share of their room. This is generally how 20 does IRI and sometimes other off-season events.
• Disorganized: Cars with students and parents take whoever wants to go to the event to the event. The team pays the event registration and that's it. Lodging and transportation are left to individual organization. 20 rarely does events like this, but occasionally for a sparsely attended off-season event.

[Monochron]

How we have done it. Definitely not saying it is perfect!

• best practices
  1. Only take as many adults as you need. If you are bringing lots of parents you may want to make it clear which of them are the chaperones and which of them are just attending. We had some big issues with that this year and issues with parents are an awful thing to have on a trip.
  2. Also, make sure your parents are fully informed about the days events. Make sure they don't feel jerked around.
  3. If you are carpooling make sure every drivers knows what is expected of them. If you plan to continue driving through a snow storm, make sure your drivers are willing to do that. Have discussions about road conditions and emergency procedures.

• tips/tricks
  1. Chose a hotel that has free decent breakfast.
  2. Plan team dinners/events ahead of time. Travelling with the team should be fun. Go to dinner together and have real team bonding time.

• kids-per-chaperone ratios
  1. Pretty much up to whatever organization you are affiliated with. We had a LOT of parents attend this past year due mostly to our need for drivers. We had about 25 students and 15 adults (mentors included). This ended up causing more friction than anything as managing that many adults is sometimes harder than managing students. It is tough on teh parents to have to always be around for the use of their vehicles.
  2. Ratio of 5:1 has been our sweet spot for outreaches.

• transportation (we'd likely start with a Regional within driving distance)
  1. What options are open to you? Carpooling is usually cheapest and you can often expect parents to pay for their own gas. Renting a bus is possible but a tad expensive. Try to find another team or two to pair up with if you are going to do this. Flying can occasionally be cheaper than a bus but that is really fun option as well.

• how the cost is taken care of (travel fee for the students?)
  1. We asked for students to pay for their hotel rooms completely and to either bring lunches or money to buy lunches. We chose a hotel with free breakfast and the team provided dinner each night. We put 4 students in each room to their total cost came to around $70 for 3 nights.
  2. We also allow students to raise money for the team to cover their cost of travel. To explain; each student must raise $200 (through any means) for the team in order to travel with the team. Half of the amount that they raise above that $200 goes towards paying for their hotel. So if a student raises $250 in total, $25 goes towards their cost and they only have to pay $45 out of pocket.

• resources for FRC travel (not necessarily to the Championship)
  1. FIRST used a company called Experient last year where you could go in and get better rates on nearby hotels. I hear some people were successful with this but you HAVE to grab a hotel as soon as the system opens in some cases. I don't know how well it worked because Experient never managed to give our team access to the site. Their customer service is less than useful. You might do better to google / google map search for hotels around the event and just search until you find one you like.

[EricH]

Phase 1: Check school travel policies regarding transportation. You're looking for information about adults (number, ratio, and qualifications) and transportation methods (i.e., does the school require some particular method for some particular distance). There may also be rooming requirements (I'll get to some of those later).

Work with the school now, they might even help fill out the budget a bit. Do NOT violate school policies--they really don't like that for some reason.


Phase 2: Figure out where you're going. This would pretty much be asking the team "where do we want to travel and who do we want to play?".

Phase 3: Make preliminary arrangements. That is, register for the regional and start hotel/transportation shopping. At this point, you'll need to figure out how many students you can take without violating a school requirement--and how you determine who goes if you have to leave someone behind. Start figuring out payment/fundraising.

And now for some other tips:
--Hotel breakfast is usually a really good thing to have. But look into what that breakfast is: if it's just donuts and coffee, you're going to have a lot of hungry teenagers. (Or hyper teenagers. Whichever is worse...)
--Do some advance research into venue food--it may be worth getting something delivered (or picked up) for the team.
--Speaking of food: Dinner should be planned out somewhat ahead of time. Either have a place to go eat or return to the hotel for pizza.
--If anybody doesn't have contact info for the lead mentor/other key leaders, they need to get it.
--Make sure that everybody is aware of team travel policies like buddy system, curfew, and the like.
--Just to make things easier on the leaders: make sure everybody wears a team shirt on travel days. Much easier to figure out who is in your group and stick together--and if you're missing someone, they should be easy to spot.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by EricH

make sure everybody wears a team shirt on travel days. Much easier to figure out who is in your group and stick together--and if you're missing someone, they should be easy to spot.

Absolutely! Even when we do local demos, team shirts are mandatory. Not only do they stand out for mustering, they present the team as an, er, team. As we now have two uniforms (t-shirts and bowling shirts), we have to make clear which is the "uniform of the day".

[Mr V]

There is no one single best procedure because it varies depending on your district policies and the teams financials.

So #1 is to find out all applicabile district policies.

For example I know of two districts that require the travel to be by district vehicle. One the cost of the bus and the district van that carries the robot and pit supplies is covered by the district and another than charges that takes the money out of the team's school account. Some require that that they make the arrangements and pay for the accommodations but require reimbursement for the costs. Some I know will cover the cost of the Coaches hotel room.

If they will allow transport by private car what are the requirements, background check, finger printing, proof of insurance ect.

Do you have the budget to cover some are all of the cost of the travel? Some teams do cover a portion or all of the travel expenses if the student meets certain requirements. Others require students to pay expenses but have hardship grants available to make certain that the students who cant afford are still able to attend. Note this is usually done as a "see me" and kept 100% private from other students.

Do you have a "Team Mom" or other person who wants to help out but is not an engineering mentor. In my former team before we had a booster club we had a Team Mom who made the arrangements, found and reserved hotel rooms, made sure the drivers met school policies, assigned students to cars, assigned students to chaperones, gathered orders for the boxed lunches, arranged for teams dinners ect. Once we had a booster club the booster club made the arrangements, paid the bills, collected monies ect with the various things being shared by the various members of the booster club leadership.

[penguin4130]

1) What does your team do to prepare for traveling to and from competitions?

2) What are your teams requirements for traveling with the team(if any)?

3) If you have any travel fees - What are they?

[Billfred]

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)

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.

[Cynette]

As there usually is, there is a NEMO (Non-Engineering Mentor Organization) white paper on team travel. Here is a link! I hope it is helpful to you! http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/tips_for_travel.pdf