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Originally Posted by GaryV1188
I just came across this discussion and found it interesting.
Question for Tim and Not2B - I presume both of your teams are sponsored by schools. Do you then have a teacher or other school staff member who is the responsible party, essentially the chief chaperone? Our school board would not give us permission to be a group, much less travel, without a school district employee being in charge.
We are a smaller team, about 20 kids max. Much of our decision-making can be done Town Hall style, where everyone gets to put in an opinion, and consensus is achieved. We have two teachers that have the primary responsibility for organization and control. One of them is technical, the other focuses on Chairmans and other activities. We have a couple engineering mentors from our sponsoring corporations, and they are mentors, not chaperones. (Although they are adults and take adult reponsibilities when dealing with kids - for example, if they saw kids engaging in inappropriate behavior, they would not hesitate to get involved just because it "wasn't their job description" to discipline.) We have a couple of parents, myself included, who are actively involved in robot design and build, and are classified as "parent mentors". Most of the rest of the parents are involved as boosters and supporters in a variety of ways - fund raising, transportation, chaperones, food, etc.
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Our team meets twice a week in the off season, one long meeting to work on the robot primarily and a short lunch meeting for administrative details. There is a faculty advisor and he handles the administrative meeting and is required to travel with the team on road trips. The school also has a policy of "approved mentors" who go through a background check, fingerprinting, and TB check. Only approved mentors can work alone with the kids. Last year there were 3 approved mentors working with the team, my wife and I and one other all in technical capacities.
It sounds like your team is about the same size as ours in terms of students but you have more adult involvement. As head mentors, my wife and I worked with the club 7 days a week for the approximately 7 weeks prior to ship. Since we were the only ones with keys to the lab, we were the first to arrive and the last to leave. The other tecnical mentor had job responsibilities and was the when he could. We have 3 parents who spent a little time working on the robot. One of my requirements to compete next year, aside from having the money up front, is more adult involvement both technical mentors and parental support.
I agree with Not2B, by the time I spend all day at the competition with the students and the robot, I want to relax a little. If I saw them doing something inappropriate, I'd weigh in and stop them. However, I don't want the added responsibility to try to follow them around and keep them out of trouble or entertain them. This year during the build I spent too much time trying to keep them in line while trying to produce a robot. I feel those activities are better handled by a parent. 300 hours building the robot and 10 hour days at the competition site are quite enough for me, thank you.
Another reason I don't want the responsibility of being a chaperone is I don't want the liability exposure. I don't have a lot of confidence that the school would vigorously try to protect me should a student do something stupid and get hurt and an irate parent try to sue me. And I have a pretty good idea if the stupidity students are capable of when on road trips. You can't be everywhere at once and things can and do happen.
When I first read this comic, I thought "Awww, how cute!". But then, thoughts of Karthik singing J. Lo's "Love Don't Cost a Thing" started running around through my head, and everything changed. - Travis Hoffman [more] 
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