For those who lack dedication...

[Winged Wonder]

to prevent that sort of problem, our team enforces specific requirements that need to be met in order for students to go to comepetitions. for each competition, there are a certain amount of robotics related hours, community service hours, and fund raisers each team member needs to have in order to go on a trip. ex: this year, in order to go to both regionals and the championship event, a student needs to have dedicated at least 90 hours to the robotics team itself (either helping design and assemble the robot, working on chairmans award or on the spirit comittee, or whatever), 10 community service hours elsewhere (its his/her choice), and needs to have participated in at least 7 fundraisers this year. sure it may seem a little harsh to impose restrictions on who can do what even though they are interested in FIRST, but it ensures that the people truly involved and dedicated are allowed to have fun, and gives the slackers something to work for. i'd suggest having some sort of system to get people really dedicated

[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...

[steven114]

We don't have enough money to fund our travel fees, so we have to have the team members pay for the hotel/transportation. That's enough to chase off those who don't commit themselves - only the people who care are willing to cough up the money to go.

[Katie Reynolds]

The NEW Apple Corps have many requirements for students to be able to attend competitions and participate on the team; most of them revolve around meeting grade requirements, attending meetings (especially during the build) and some mandatory fund-raising. This came about after the 2001 season, when we took 50 students to Nationals - crazy for us; we didn't have nearly enough for them to do, and many didn't do much on the team as it was! Honestly, it was hard to adjust to at first, but it showed who really was dedicated and who was just there for the "trip to Florida" (yes, that was some students' sole reason for being on the team. )

Check out 93's handbook for more info: http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/tesla/firs...AChandbook.doc

[Denman]

we have a policy that if the rest of the team feels you havn't done enough, you can't go. Now with everyone paid their £150 flight ($300 ish) deposit, we will try and refund anyone who we deem can't go. I believe we have a letter that we show any member doing nothing, that we threatent o send to their parents, explaining the situation. Usually that does the trick tbh. Last year we had no policy and got stuck with 2 useless people going just for hte fun of it and doing absolutely nothing all year.... and they would admit if you asked them...
We also keep note of certain tasks that we ask people to do , to provide evidence and to keep a track. Such as fundraisers etc... if you dont turn up, you get a mark on your name in the black book of doom.
One of our kind sponsers gave us airmiles for medium class tickets (ie not cattle class ) on the plane, and the 5 most dedicated are getting them .

[Geoff P.]

it is our team policy that the most dedicated team members get to go to the regionals(/nats?). we have a sign-in/out sheet where students clock their hours. the more time one spends at robotics, and the more done while there (determined by mentors), the more regionals one will get to go to. so even if a rookie goes every day, if he just sits in the corner and does nothing, he doesn't get to go.

[Pi Is Exactly 3]

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. It seems like you're all doing what we've been considering and that's very comforting to hear. Hopefully we wont have to cut too many people from regionals.

Thanks,
Alex