Team??

[Raven_Writer]

Ok, I want to know something. Who thinks a team who built the robot together, should goto events as a team, and not just send "x" amount of people? I mean, yea, people may not be at the builds 100% of the time due to some reason(s); but they did help build the robot. Then all the sudden it's like the "head-cheese" of the team turn their backs on those members that aren't "necessary".

[To all people who may get mad at me for posting this, PM me. Don't post here please]

[gsensel]

IMO if it is at all possibly financially all students who paricipate activly on some part of a team should have the oppritunity to travel to a competition the robot is competing in.

[shyra1353]

Originally Posted by gsensel

IMO if it is at all possibly financially all students who paricipate activly on some part of a team should have the oppritunity to travel to a competition the robot is competing in.

definitely agreed. it all depends on the financial situation. ideally, each team has enough money to send there whole team to each competition they attend, but reality is that doesnt always happen and teams end up only sending 4 or 8 people to represent there whole team

[MissInformation]

Mainly it is a financial situation for us as well. Each year we either do 2 Regional competitions or a Regional and Championship. When we do 2 Regional competitions, we send our pit and flight crew down on Wednesday night and the rest of the team goes on early Friday morning for each event. If we go to a Regional and Championship, we send pit and flight on Wednesday night for the Regional and the rest of the team shows up on Saturday, but the whole team leaves on Wednesday for the Championship. Like I said, this is mainly for financial reasons, but the whole chaperone issue does play into it as well, since the two teachers who help out with the team will only do 1 competition each, that leaves parents/adults to pull up the slack, and we have to work around their work and family schedule. Now, there must be 1 chaperone per 10 kids, and there must be both male and female chaperones (especially in the hotel room), which for the whole team means 3 or 4 chaperones (we usually try to have more to make it less exhausting on the chaperone).

Our system works for us. Pit and flight are coveted positions (flight you have to try out for, pit is usually the "best" student from each sub group, chosen by our team captain and engineers).

Heidi

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[Raven_Writer]

See, finacial-aide-like-stuff isn't a problem. The school board did donate 6000 smackers to the team (but only to let the "main" people go). They were seriously shocked about the low price (they thought it'd be like 10,000 or something i guess).

[Joe J.]

The way our team decided who got to go to Nationals is we kept track of how many hours each person was there during build and set an hour limit so people had to put in 35 hours in order to be eligible to go to nationals. In the end it worked out that the people with the most hours got first shot a going to nationals and as far as I know we didn't have to turn anyone down who wanted to go.

[MissInformation]

We do have an hours system as well. Students have to make 60% of the team hours to stay on the team and 80% of the team hours to go on the trips. It sounds a bit harsh, but the students are given lots of chances to earn extra credit hours, for example, all of our Wednesday and Friday meetings this year were counted as extra hours.


Heidi

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[RogerR]

Originally Posted by MissInformation

We do have an hours system as well. Students have to make 60% of the team hours to stay on the team and 80% of the team hours to go on the trips. It sounds a bit harsh, but the students are given lots of chances to earn extra credit hours, for example, all of our Wednesday and Friday meetings this year were counted as extra hours.


Heidi

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what do you mean be "team hours"? only one person could get 60% and 80% of the total team hours, and i'm sure ya'll have more than that. I must be a little confused.

[Mike641128]

We typically bring all that can afford the trip, however this year for the national since we already went to Orlando we are cutting back on kids to come.

[MissInformation]

Originally Posted by RogerR

what do you mean be "team hours"? only one person could get 60% and 80% of the total team hours, and i'm sure ya'll have more than that. I must be a little confused.

For example, we have three meetings a week that are 4 hours long, and one meeting on Saturday that is 8 hours long, that's 20 hours that week that are team hours. If a student makes all of the meetings, and stays the whole time, they have made 100% of the team hours. If they miss a meeting or are late, they obviously don't have 100% Now, if we decide we are behind, and have to add in a Friday meeting for 3 hours, and decide that Friday does not count towards the team hours, anyone who attends it gets extra time (and yes, there were students who had a percentage of hours over 100%). Does that make sense, or have I confused you even more?

Heidi

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where confusion is a facet of life

[Jay H 237]

We decide who (how many) depending on finances and grades. If any student is failing any subject on our team we don't allow them to travel. Also depending on how much is in our teams account and how much fundraising each student did also affects who goes. We keep track of how much fundraising each student did in an Excel file and the amount that each individual did is subtracted from thier travel costs. Some students will pay to make up the difference and some will chose not to pay which in turn means not going.

[Raven_Writer]

Thanks for all the replies.

Last year we did do the "60% of time put in to go" thing, but that wasn't exactly inforced. This year it was just like "got the money? then you can go if you do..."

Again, thanks all for your replies.

[DarkJedi613]

for us we have a % of time the most time your supposed to have - but it isn't enforced, if you can pay you can go...which to me I don't really like since some of those who get to go didn't do anything on for the club