Pre-college or high school aged?

[Carol]

The rules for both FRC and FTC state that the drivers and human player on the drive team must be a pre-college student. Anyone can be the coach or function as any other role on the team. There is no standard definition for pre-college, but each year specific questions are asked in the official forum. (Example - I remember one where a 16 student who had received their GED was considered to not be a pre-college student).

Since she will be attending college during the competition season, my GUESS (and I am not an official FRC source) is that she can do anything on the team but be the driver or HP (or whatever they decide to call those people this year). Whether your team considers her to be a team member and not a mentor is up to your team and how it is organized.

Do you need to have an official answer now? You can always wait until the Forum is up and running. Or ask in the FTC Q&A forum now.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Carol

The rules for both FRC and FTC state that the drivers and human player on the drive team must be a pre-college student. Anyone can be the coach or function as any other role on the team. There is no standard definition for pre-college, but each year specific questions are asked in the official forum. (Example - I remember one where a 16 student who had received their GED was considered to not be a pre-college student).

Since she will be attending college during the competition season, my GUESS (and I am not an official FRC source) is that she can do anything on the team but be the driver or HP (or whatever they decide to call those people this year). Whether your team considers her to be a team member and not a mentor is up to your team and how it is organized.

Do you need to have an official answer now? You can always wait until the Forum is up and running. Or ask in the FTC Q&A forum now.

I agree with Carol's logic. Within your team, she can do whatever you'd like during meetings etc, but as a student attending college she cannot fulfill roles restricted to "high school age" (this means students attending high school, as far as I can tell) students, like driver, hp, etc.

[Jared Russell]

If a 16 year old who is taking college courses is not a pre-college student, does that mean that a 40 year old who has never attended college is a pre-college student?

Does anyone know if Jeff Gordon ever went to college?

[Fe_Will]

Originally Posted by Jared341

Does anyone know if Jeff Gordon ever went to college?

According to his website he hasn't... but if you get Jeff Gordon we call dibs on Danica Patrick.

[Carol]

But I'm willing to bet that Jeff Gordan did graduate high school, which would make him ineligible

[Josh Goodman]

Originally Posted by Jared341

If a 16 year old who is taking college courses is not a pre-college student, does that mean that a 40 year old who has never attended college is a pre-college student?

This really makes sense. The intent of the rule is for the students to drive and the students to talk with the referees. So that no adults can argue or take over a driving spot. I believe you can interpret this rule when they say "pre-college" to mean "ages 18 and under".

[Chris is me]

I think the rule is left ambiguous because it is rather obvious who should be driving the robot, and making a bunch of sub rules for each and every possible exception to the rule would make the Manual that much longer and cause that many more headaches.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think the rule is left ambiguous because it is rather obvious who should be driving the robot, and making a bunch of sub rules for each and every possible exception to the rule would make the Manual that much longer and cause that many more headaches.

The problem with that is that what is obvious to one person isn't obvious to another. Ask any lawyer.

[Francis-134]

Originally Posted by Jared341

If a 16 year old who is taking college courses is not a pre-college student, does that mean that a 40 year old who has never attended college is a pre-college student?

Does anyone know if Jeff Gordon ever went to college?

This logic brings up my favorite joke of the season.

Lebron James went from HS to the NBA, therefore is he pre-college? If so, he's the best human player in the game .

Logic would seem to dictate the FIRST's intent for the rule is to either ensure that students are still in high school and not in college/post high school career when they are drivers, operators and human players. This gets murky for home school students because one could say that they are either perpetually in high school or never in high school. In this instance, if they do not have some sort of diploma or GED, it would seem that the most prudent scenario is for the student to cease being on the drive team when they reach the period of time they would have moved on to higher education (if you were born pre-September 1988 for example, you would cease to be a pre-college student in September 2006).

In any case, there's nothing stopping a "mentor" from participating in a way that resembles a student. FIRST was envisioned to make the youth of America(s) more interested in science and technology, no matter their specific age. And I'm sure any mentor will tell you that you never stop learning new things when you are involved in FIRST.

[Molten]

Ok, here's a question people seem to be disregarding. Does the student in question even want to drive? If not, most of this thread has become rather irrelevent.

[Rion Atkinson]

Not necessarily.. For future cases what if future said person wants to drive?

[wendymom]

This is something that FIRST HQ needs to answer. If a student is still enrolled in high school but is taking some college courses in Florida, he is considered "pre-college" by the state and still eligible for scholarships as a "high school student".

Pre-college can also be middle schoolers. We have 6th, 7th and 8th graders on our team. They are not in high school but still eligible to be on the drive team.

[Trying to Help]

In our case, based on the past, I'd definitely say this person wants to be on the drive team. I don't know if commitments to classes will get in the way of our competition, but other than that, I think it's definite that this student wants to drive.

And, Wendymom, how do you handle younger students on your team? We were recently talking about hand tools v. power tools, supervision, etc. with younger students because we've had a few approach us. Do you have anything written down or is it more of a common knowledge approach?

I'm really going to try to call FIRST tomorrow. In my "free time".

Trying to Help

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Trying to Help

I'm really going to try to call FIRST tomorrow. In my "free time".

Let me save you some time. Don't call FIRST about this question. They will not be able to answer it. Until the rules for the 2010 game are released in January, no one is going to provide any specific information regarding the game, the rules, the robot requirements, or any associated areas. Wait until the rules are released, and after reading and reviewing them, see if there is still an issue that needs clarification.

Originally Posted by Jared341

If a 16 year old who is taking college courses is not a pre-college student, does that mean that a 40 year old who has never attended college is a pre-college student?

Does anyone know if Jeff Gordon ever went to college?

Whether Jeff Gordon went to college or not is irrelevant. He is not currently a student. Q.E.D.

-dave


.

[Trying to Help]

I called FIRST.

I spoke with Andrea who said that if this student is not doing high school level curriculum, then she should be a mentor and not a team member. I thanked her for her time.

After speaking with her, it made me wonder about all those students mentioned in this thread who take college classes as a normal part of their high school careers. Obviously there's a difference here; she's 100% in college whereas most high schoolers are part-time when they're taking courses.

I wonder if this will end up being like the battery question from last year.

Trying to Help