**FIRST EMAIL**/IMPORTANT FRC Kickoff & Season Information

[dustinjeremy2k]

Originally Posted by dlavery

I have given up on trying to use TIMS to register students and prepare consent forms. I am sorry FIRST, but you have created a tool that is too cumbersome and unwieldy to use in a manner that offers any advantage to the team. Until that is corrected, we will be sticking to paper forms delivered directly to the site.

Quite an indictment... and I AGREE ENTIRELY!!! I have asked each of my student team members to sign up and the vast majority have done so. I am hoping FIRST will have straightened things out before the events to spare us the paperwork exchange (the last thing we're all thinking about on Thursday morning).

Our team holds a kickoff party at our school every year, and as the lead mentor, project manager, main contact, teacher, ect... for the team, I'd rather be with everyone during the most critical day of the season, not 100 miles away! It creates many issues for other team members to pickup our kit as we get to work... Here is my suggestion to anyone in the same boat (from experience): Send you representative with a mountain of paperwork (a consent form from anyone who has ever heard of your team, your personal roster, a hand-written note from the main contact signed and dated, and a blood sample) so they won't be questioned or harassed as they check in.

In a competition celebrating technology and intelligence, is the TIMS really the best we can do??? Really?