Who do you bring?

[OneAngryDaisy]

Originally Posted by Bcahn836

How does your team decide who goes to Atlanta?

The students of team 836 won't know who gets to go on the trip to ATL untill this thursday. We can only bring 12 students and 12-13 mentors and parents. So some of the mentors, team captains, and myself were asked to make a list of 12 who we though deserved to go to the big one. It wasn't easy,

12-13 mentors and parents?!?! That's a 1:1 ratio...

We bring however much kids we can afford to bring (this year about 17) as well as our 3 mentors and 2 engineers. For the kids it ultimately comes up to who put in the most time.

[fred]

Just one thing. If someone is an animator/film guy/whatever, as long as they are contributing to the team, they should go on all of the trips. I was talking to this one team and I said something like, "It's good that we can bring a lot of people on the team to competition, not just the guys who work on the robot." The response I got was basically "Why would you want to bring the guys that don't work on the robot." I think that everyone who does quality work for the team should be allowed to go to as many competitions as possible.

PS: A 1:1 ratio does seem sort of high, but that's just me.

[Max Lobovsky]

Originally Posted by OneAngryDaisy

12-13 mentors and parents?!?! That's a 1:1 ratio...

We bring however much kids we can afford to bring (this year about 17) as well as our 3 mentors and 2 engineers. For the kids it ultimately comes up to who put in the most time.

what's the difference between a mentor and an engineer?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by maxlobovsky

what's the difference between a mentor and an engineer?

Not all mentors are engineers. I'm not.

[Max Lobovsky]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Not all mentors are engineers. I'm not.

I understand, but i was wondering why she seperated engineer mentors from all other mentors.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by maxlobovsky

I understand, but i was wondering why she seperated engineer mentors from all other mentors.

On out team the engineering mentors focus mostly on the building of the robot and game strategy while other mentors like teachers are expected to police the team and make sure the kids are doing what they are supposed to. Particularly on the road when the teachers value truly come into play and have to maintain order of 30+ kids in the hotel and make sure they are fed, safe, motivated and reasonably well behaved.
That job mostly falls on Ms. Foos and my wife and they do an incredible job.

[Ryan Albright]

everyone pays there own way so youc ome up with the money you go

[OneAngryDaisy]

Originally Posted by maxlobovsky

I understand, but i was wondering why she seperated engineer mentors from all other mentors.

geez, another dude comes out and refers to me as a she. i think I'll go and change my title. why must you all discriminate against daisies?

[tophq]

our team simply chooses the ones we need to get stuff done. we try not to ask ur sponsors for too much. we want to do as much by ourselves as possible. we simply take those who NEED to go (i.e. tech crew, drive team, and 3-4 mentors/chapperones. i don't think we'll be going to AT this year though.

[sweetmotoxchik]

Our team chooses the students that go by useing several different things. We constantly do grade checks and we have to be in good standings with all of our teachers. They also look at how much time you have dedicated to the program and how many events we have attended. Our teachers just pretty much look at how much energy we have put into the team because obviously someone shouldn't be going if their not as dedicated as someone else on the team.

[Stina236]

We decide on three things:
1. Grades
2. Contribution to the Team
3. Whether or not you turned in your money on time

works for us...

[OneAngryDaisy]

Originally Posted by maxlobovsky

what's the difference between a mentor and an engineer?

Welll, we have O who is the 'head honcho', as you'd call it- he does everything from running meetings to arranging trips to creating new teams- EVERYTHING, yeah, he won the Philadelphia Volunteer of the Year two years ago. He's amazing. Then we have H, who works with the animation team and media group. He knows everything, and i mean everything about computers- its thanks to him we had our wireless network at cheseapeake and Philly this year- running our display computer from the stands. Our third mentor is C, who also contributes to media and chairmans, and who showed up everyday at building- she was invaluable to the build team.

The difference: our two engineers work at the North Montco Tech Center *NMTCC where we actually build our robot. They're amazing as well. It's such a wonderful partnership, as we work with kids from 5 other school districts making our robot.

[Mike Heinowski]

We have an hour system, in order to go to nats you need 35 hours of work that isnt at our normal wednesday meetings. Its not difficult to get this amount of hours. I got 146 or so, the fourth highest on the team.

[Bcahn836]

Originally Posted by OneAngryDaisy

12-13 mentors and parents?!?! That's a 1:1 ratio...

We bring however much kids we can afford to bring (this year about 17) as well as our 3 mentors and 2 engineers. For the kids it ultimately comes up to who put in the most time.

Yes, and it works. This system ensures that each student is watched over by atleast one or two adults. We, students, must confirm everything with this person who ever it might be for lunch, medication, ect...
Additonally we have 13 mentors for each of our subteams all of them are some sort of engineer. Our sub teams consist of electronics, drive systems, arm and end, public relations, command and control, manufacturing, systems intergration and Strategies. And we are trying to bring the mentors in charge of each sub team or two,and two students from each subteam. Toss in a few parents and you have 12 students and 13 mentors and parents.

[Bytor]

What's the difference between mentors and engineers?

Two slide rules and attitude!