Student Participation Agreement

[Qbranch]

Personally, and by personally I speak on the behalf of team 1024, we had a huge issue the past couple years with several (maybe about 6~8) people who magically showed up on the day we were going to leave to go out of town, and were registered for the team, but never showed up on any or many of the work days. Obviously they just wanted to cut class.

So, after rummaging around in the attic of McKenzie career center, we found a timecard puncher and a huuuuuge stack of timecards. Now we have a forty hour requirement that is surveyed by your subteam leader (programming, electrical, etc.). Basically, if you don't have forty documented hours, you don't travel.

Of course my programming kids won't have any problem with that... considering they've already met the 40 hour requirement and the season HASN'T EVEN STARTED...

Does that make me mean?

Quick swerve off topic: The programming project I dreamed up for us to work on 'does the wave' with a row of 8 airplane servos... turned out rockin sweet. I'll have to post video of it sometime... makes what looks just like ocean waves with a row of notecards... unfortunately, I opened a whole can of worms diving into some trig stuff: Now they want to build a small pen plotter! Oh if only we had more time before the season started...

-q

[colin340]

i think the grade thing is not a good idea i may scare off some kids who need this program to help them,
get the students on the team then help put up there grades
as for atendents rules will not help you need to make them want to come the meetings in the season
as for off season meeting while that a different story they may need some force

[bobdahaxor]

Since our team operates on a 5 day build schedule, We have 4 days mandated. You can miss one day a week, but Saturday is mandatory! Otherwise you are considered inactive unless you talk to our club supervisor. This means you can participate in functions, but not go to events that we have to stay overnight!

[GMKlenklen]

well, thank you all for trying to help me and my team through this. It seems like we've concocted a plan to rally up support while not angering our advisor... and hopefully this action will alow us to operate closer to the ideals that first represents. thanks again!

[+()c|D]

i think your team should put minimums on the amount of work that the team members have to put in, such as:
3/5 days a week or minimum 15 hours a week during build season.

Thats a bit less threatening and maybe even only allow team members with enough hours to go on trips and so on.

[Sunshine]

Students have a lot of commitments: school, family, church, sports,etc. etc. etc.

We are a new team (second year) but were also concerned with students that showed up at regional time that put little effort into the building season. We wanted to reward students who put their heart and should into the team versus the notion of penalizing.

We took a different approach this year.
We decided to take approximately 16-18 students to the first regional event in St. Louis. This event is 6 hours from our locale. To qualify for this event, students will be judged on their participation and their importance to the team. We will take the best of the best. We anticipate 5-6 pit crew
members, 1-2 spokespersons, 2-3 drivers, 2-3 scouts, 1 safety director, and a software expert. The best thing that a student can do for the team and insure their chances of participating at St. Louis is to become valuable as a team
member. They do this by learning as much as they can and helping with as many duties as possible. Stay must stay active and visible.

[robogeek753]

Our team has problems in attendance similar to everyone else's here. We have 30-40 people "on" the team, but only 10ish that work. However, our members pay to go to competitions, so if they want to dish out $100+ to cheer, they can. Only the people that were involved in build are allowed to be "involved" in competition, as in driving, working on the robot etc. In extreme circumstances they are not allowed to go; but you may be suprised to see what some of the slackers turn out to be (ours became a welder and main driver after slacking his first year). I would say make no requriments for "being" on the team, or even going to competition (as long as the team isn't paying for it) but make contribution (not neccesarily attendance) the requirement for being involved in the truly fun parts of the season. Regionals!

Just one extra thought:

This year, you can't be on the field unless you can show extensive knowledge of the game rules in the manual (for our team).

[Stephi Rae]

I definitely agree with pretty much everything that has been said here.

Our team requires that students attend 80% of meetings in order to travel to the competitions, which is how we motivate attendance. If you do not WANT to go (I really can't imagine why, but in any case) you are not going to be forced to attend. We also have necessary 3.0 GPA to be in leadership, though if something sever happens, such as a health or family issue like I had last year, this can be excused or revised. I thought I had an electronic copy of the document, but it looks like I do not. If you're interested, you can PM me and I can get it or give you the contact for my coach and he would be able to provide you with it.

As far as general member GPA, no one is allowed to be failing a class, and I believe the minimum is a 2.0 (C average). Our school does not give D's, so that is pretty much the same as saying you cannot fail any classes. However, failing a class does not kick you off of the team, it simply means you cannot attend competitions. Also, our team is instituting a mandatory study period this year, to help students with their homework and grades. It looks like it is going to work very well. There are a few hours between the end of school and the start of our meetings, so there is about an hour in there that we go and work on our homework. That way students that are struggling can get necessary help from other students or from teachers (a lot of our teachers stay at school pretty late, and are very helpful). We are a small high school, and finally have all four grades (our school is only 4 years old, and we started with just my class of 08 as freshman) so the older students have already taken all of the classes and we are able and willing to help. Then there's a dinner break also before the meeting.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but it sounds like someone outside of the team is writing up this agreement? I don't understand how that could be applicable, because this person does not seem to understand your purpose. Our team came up with this agreement as a community decision with our coach, and everyone was encouraged to provide some input. We wrote a simple outline of the things that were needed to be addressed and then went through all of them as a team and put down all of the solid rules and qualifications.

I hope this was of some help, and feel free to contact me if you need anything, like a copy of our agreement.

Steph

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Stephi Rae

Correct me if i'm wrong, but it sounds like someone outside of the team is writing up this agreement? I don't understand how that could be applicable, because this person does not seem to understand your purpose.

He pretty much said that (school admin with no FIRST experience, as I recall). FRC doesn't stand for FIRST Robotics Conference, that's for sure.

By the way, GMKlenklen, what's your status?

[Stephi Rae]

Originally Posted by EricH

He pretty much said that (school admin with no FIRST experience, as I recall). FRC doesn't stand for FIRST Robotics Conference, that's for sure.

By the way, GMKlenklen, what's your status?

After reading your first post again, GMKlenklen, and after some much needed rest, it now looks to me as though you mentioned the guy as your "team advisor (and our dean of student development). Depending on how your school runs things, I see this as either your coach , or an administrator assigned to manage your club/team within your school. My primary suggestion to resolve this issue, would be to approach him with a group from your team that have been the primary leaders and respectfully request that the team as a whole be able to brainstorm and form a new, reasonable and effective student participation agreement.

I am sure that this is very difficult for you and your team, I am assuming that you are a second year team by your number, as are we (Team 1983), and we sympathize with your struggles in breaking your team into your school's environment. Last year we were able to rely heavily on our coach and founder who has done this for a number of years before starting our team.

So I send my deepest sympathies, and if there is anything that I can do to help, please feel free to contact me. Like everyone says, FIRST is definitely the hardest fun you will ever have. Just don't forget, and don't let your advisor forget, that no matter what it is supposed to be fun!

Steph