Student Transportation ideas?

[EricH]

330 always uses private vehicles; the one time we've ever used anything else was to transport the robot to a post-season, and that was a church van from the church that runs our school. Either that or air travel, if we're going farther than a day or so's drive.

Admittedly, we are a group of homeschoolers, so everything we've used has been a school vehicle...

I'm pretty sure 1135 also used private vehicles for student transport. It is certainly possible, regional or post-season. You just have to find enough willing parents. (I would suggest that you start finding next year's parents as soon as you start finding next year's students. Makes life much easier if the parents are on board early. Free healthy meals during build, anyone?)

[cpeister]

We usually use mentor vehicles, but if we are short on space, we will have parents drive to off season stuff.

[Billfred]

Here are the ways my teams have traveled in the past:

Chesapeake Regional 2008 with 1618 (508 miles): Two minibuses, hired from a car rental company and driven by teachers. (Well, my girlfriend and I took Amtrak up to New York for a few days prior and met them at Union Station...but that doesn't count.) Between people and toolboxes, we about filled up both buses.

Bayou Regional 2009 with 2815 (678 miles): Charter bus, overnight. Everything fit underneath.

Palmetto Regional 2009 with 1618 and 2815 (132 miles): Both teams (same district) split a district activity bus with a district driver. 1618 sent a teacher, two students, and a mentor up the night prior in private transportation to uncrate early Thursday morning. Team items fit in a separate cargo van.

Championship 2009 with 2815 (216 miles): One rented minibus, driven by a district staff member. (Coincidentally, it was one of the buses 1618 took to Chesapeake.) Once again, we rented a cargo van to fit the toolboxes/cart/etc.

Well, my team is super poor and our school refuses to give us any money or supplies. A few times, we get to use a school bus for transportation to a Regional, and once in my memory we got to use the District van. However, a lot of the times it's mentor driven cars or parent driven cars that get students to the Regionals and back. Of course, that's the reason I always will like the Philly Regional more than the Trenton Regional; I can easily just take the subway there and back, whereas I have no idea where I am in Trenton.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by jpmittins

whereas I have no idea where I am in Trenton.

Heh. Does anyone?

From our home base to the NJ regional (80 miles) we take a charter bus (actually cheaper than a school bus) plus a mentor drives the team trailer. We stay in a hotel there (4 to a room). When we stayed near by, we van-pooled from the hotel to the arena daily (about 1 mile), but this year we stayed about 5 miles away and had a local school bus company bring us there and back.

To Palmetto and CMP this year, Toronto last year, Cleveland the year before, Palmetto the year before that... Charter bus. three years to CMP we took airplanes, this year it was too late and too expensive.

We use parent/teacher/mentor transport only for off-season events.

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Heh. Does anyone?

From our home base to the NJ regional (80 miles) we take a charter bus (actually cheaper than a school bus) plus a mentor drives the team trailer. We stay in a hotel there (4 to a room). When we stayed near by, we van-pooled from the hotel to the arena daily (about 1 mile), but this year we stayed about 5 miles away and had a local school bus company bring us there and back.

To Palmetto and CMP this year, Toronto last year, Cleveland the year before, Palmetto the year before that... Charter bus. three years to CMP we took airplanes, this year it was too late and too expensive.

We use parent/teacher/mentor transport only for off-season events.

I laughed at this. I remember, this year was the first time I went to Trenton for the competition, I was getting over a bad flu, and all I knew was to get to the really tall McDonald's sign, I had to walk 1/2 of a mile next to the highway. Not fun.