Bad behavior in the hotels.

[BaldwinNYRookie]

Teenagers left unsupervised in a hotel room are like freshman in college. They feel it's somewhat of a dorm, and being out on their own for what may be the first real time, they excercise their freedom. But at least they aren't throwing keg parties.

[Andrew Y.]

ya, something like that happened at our hotel at Boilmaker


apperantly some senior from another team started to shoot things out of the window and hitting other windows, cars, and people. not sure of hte details but i heard their mentor talking about it.

i agree that these actions need to be stopped. Everyone represents FIRST robotics off and on the field

[Jverdon]

I think it was last year when a kid got tied up and muzzeled and thrown in an elevator by an opposing team, saturday night at the Omni in Atlanta after compotion. I think i herd that the team that did it almost got kicked out of the hotel, not sure what teams were involved but i do remember the incadent.

[KenWittlief]

When I was a mentor on the Fairport team we only had one level of discipline. You break the rules and two mentors take you to the airport, call your parents and put you on the next plane home

and your parents get the bill.

Its harsh, its not fair. We dont care. We dont have time to play nanny at these events. If you can not follow the rules and control yourself, stay home.

That has been our policy since '97. So far we have never had to send anyone home.

[roboticsguy1988]

Stuff like that should never happen. I will admit a group of crazy robotics people will do crazy things in a hotel, but things such as i heard you explain should not happen. I will admit me and a few other students from my team got a little loud in the hotel room playing PS2 games and Computer Games, and yes some of it was late at night. But we never went out in the halls yelling, or knocked on anyones door and run away, or even destroy hotel property, which i recently heard about a team that did exactly that. When we were told to quite down we did. Our teams mentors usually trust us enough to let us do what we want as far as the hotel situation goes, of course there is curfew times and such rules as that. If we ever do anything wrong we get in trouble and lose privileges. However we haven't got in trouble and don't plan to.

My question to you is, where was that team members mentor(s) when this was all going on?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Hah. At GLR our team only had to deal with a bunch on kids seeing snow for the first time. With all the ensuing snow fights and vainly trying to run up the giant snowy hill behind the arena.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by roboticsguy1988

My question to you is, where was that team members mentor(s) when this was all going on?

Mentors cant be every where at once, when you have 20-30 kids or so you cant expect a mentor in each room with the kids at all times.

[roboticsguy1988]

True. I admit our mentors were not around us all the time. But i would have that by that point in time one of that teams mentors would have known about it. And i suppose with my team only having 7 students and a dozen mentors its a little different for me too.

[MissInformation]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Well, in my team now, its kind of taboo to play with and/ or come into any kind of contact with any other member of FIRST who is not on our team. This is because of this one jerk on our team who doesnt do ANYTHING but just sit around and play cards with kids from other teams, and the last person we want to be like is him. When we were in the hotel and were going for our important scouting meeting in one of our rooms, that kid didnt come, instead, he played with the other teams and played halo 2. So, naturally, any kind of interference caused by another team is really not welcome among my team. As a matter of fact, if they find out that I'm actually posting on Chief Delphi, they will probably compare me to the one that i will only call "Andrew".
But anyway, it shoudnt happen again, and its probably because of the glass, and the noise the freshman portion of our team was making. (Yeah Im a freshman, but I bunk with the older kids.)

The hotel incident aside, your team should be very worried about this "taboo" about coming into contact with any other member of FIRST who are not on your team. There is a reason there's a Sportsmanship award where the judges go around asking teams about other team's good sportsmanship, and why mentoring other teams is encouraged. It is not the intention of FIRST to build isolated teams and vicious rivalries, if that was the case, the game would most likely be one robot against one robot, not two against two, or three against three with constantly shifting alliances.

I hope this "taboo" attitude is only on the part of the students and not the mentors and I hope even more that it can be changed. Chief Delphi is one of the most amazing sources for FIRST that you will come across, and I truly believe that teams that do not have at least one member as a regular poster here are missing out on some great opportunities. After my first year volunteering, I belonged to a robotics team. After my fourth year volunteering, I now have a whole robotics community, and am so much richer for it.

And as for "Andrew", maybe your team leaders (students and adults alike) need to ask themselves why they have not been able to reach this student to engage him in more participation. And if this is such a bad situation that if affects the whole team the way it appears to, then they need to establish rules to prevent this from happening again.

I'm sorry your team may be blamed for something they possibly didn't do. Misbehaving teens is a risk all teams face when traveling, I know this because I've heard the stories from students who are now alumni, and I am so very, very grateful I did not have to chaperon them and I've seen some bad behavior (our students are pretty good now, but they still cause an occasional grousing).

Heidi

[Meredith343MiM]

It's rather unfortunate for kids to represent your team like that. As a student myself... I don't believe I've ever been compelled to do something comepletely irrational. I'd recommend a zero-tolerance/open door policy. Make sure that students who are prone to misbehave are aware that if they do anything to that nature, they're going home. Also, make sure that their freedom is still in tact. Give them the opportunity to be with friends that were placed in other hotel rooms (whether boy or girl) as long as the door is propped open by an object or the dead bolt. Although we're "kids"... we're growing young adults... things will happen, but in the long run, we're all responsible for our own actions.

[Bharat Nain]

It is sad that you have had to face such an event, deal with it smartly.

Firstly, kids are kids. They will do things you don't like or want. They will do stupid things that could cost you something. They will do things that annoy everyone. They will do things that annoy other members on your own team itself. That is the first thing all mentors should understand because sooner or later there will be such kids on the team. It is almost inevitable. How many times is it that in a high level class(AP? Honors?) you find some kid asking absolutely stupid questions? It's just the way things work.

With that said, you need to learn to deal with it. On our team, we do give them some room to have fun. They know they are responsible for their actions and so they learn to control themselves at times. If by any chance they do go overboard, we send them back home on the next flight at the cost of their own parents + any cost they have to pay for damage. This includes bad behavior.

All in all, it is a competition with high school kids participating.

[Vin211]

Teams should start taping their members into the rooms. I was on a team for 4 years and each night we had a curfew and were taped in our rooms. If the tape seal was broken the next morning from us opening the door, we were in trouble!

Good times trapped in the motel room(s). Nintendo 64, Mt. Dew, and a ceiling fan.....you do the math!

Lol those who were with me on the team know!

Ask Elgin about the time he broke a monorail.

[MissInformation]

Originally Posted by Vin211

Teams should start taping their members into the rooms. I was on a team for 4 years and each night we had a curfew and were taped in our rooms. If the tape seal was broken the next morning from us opening the door, we were in trouble!

April 2002... the Championship in Florida... don't know names or team numbers, but some loosely-chaperoned robotics students thought it would be funny to remove the tape from all of the taped doors they saw...

Heidi

[Weightmn]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiki
If I find out my team has to suffer because of another team's wrongdoing, I will take some kind of action.

Originally Posted by Cory

Um, you were saying something about graciously professional behavior?

Doesn't mean they mean't something bad by this post, it could simply mean they will talk to someone at FIRST or a person's teacher or mentor.
They might just be referring to taking some appropriate action.

[devicenull]

Originally Posted by Vin211

Teams should start taping their members into the rooms. I was on a team for 4 years and each night we had a curfew and were taped in our rooms. If the tape seal was broken the next morning from us opening the door, we were in trouble!

Thats probably not the best way to do this. We had a problem with students leaving their rooms, on the last night of our trip.. those students were required to individually present an apology to the entire team.. and I'm fairly certain that they will never leave their rooms again.

Tape just doesn't seem like a good idea.. it will only encourage them to do stupider things.. going off the balconies is one thing I wouldn't doubt someone would try. Or through the ceilings, if the hotel has a dropped ceiling.

There's a thread about this somewhere else.. not too sure where though