increased team size

[kstl99]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

One question for you other teams: how do you deal with rides when going to the regionals? Do you guys get a bus, get individual rides or just take the core team?

How could you possibly only take the core team? The regionals are the reward for the hard work you put in. They are where you learn what works well and what doesn't work so well. It is a chance to see how other teams met the challenges of the game. I can't imagine telling someone who has put work into the team that they had to stay home.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

David,
We are sort of the host team for the Midwest Regional and it is close to the school so everyone who raises enough money for a tshirt and has maintained grades can attend the Midwest regional with parent's permission. The second regional must be a bus ride away and a skeleton crew attends. This is just the pit crew, drivers, and a few needed for strategy and scouting. Total is about 15 students. Travel for Champs is the same, we must take a bus. Typically we have kept it to around 35 since that is all that will fit on a bus with chaperons and school staffers.
I should also add that insurance for the schools requires that students must be driven by parents or school staff. Mentors, chaperones and other adults may not drive students in our district. Even if a parent OK's the adult, it cannot take place. For the Midwest Regional, school buses on Friday and Saturday handle the majority of the team. Pit crew and drive team are shuttled down in a school van.

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by kstl99

How could you possibly only take the core team? The regionals are the reward for the hard work you put in. They are where you learn what works well and what doesn't work so well. It is a chance to see how other teams met the challenges of the game. I can't imagine telling someone who has put work into the team that they had to stay home.

Well it is quite possible, like for example, our football team has about 70 kids in it. We can not afford to take 2 buses, so our coach has considered only taking the guys he believes will benefit the team. So far he has not done that yet. It is an option, but I guess its not the "FIRST Way".

[IKE]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

... but I guess its not the "FIRST Way".

David,
You were correct in your initial assumptions that different teams handle this differently. Before the district model, our team would send the pit crew and comp team on Thursdays (practice days), and then the rest of the team would come on Friday and Saturday. For thursdays, we would coordinate mentor vehicles in order to hual mentors, tools, and the 7-10 kids for thursday. Friday and Saturday we would schedule a bus from the school. Occasionally other conflicts would require a seperate group to ride with a parent. Students were not allowed to drive to events.

With regards to "the FIRST Way", there are lots of different ways that FIRST is done. What may seem completely ridiculous to one team is perfectly reasonable to another team. In the past, we discussed the importance of a 3rd regional and whether or not it made since to take the whole team. It was an open debate each year that included time away from school, money, and logistics. With the District model, it is less of a debate for us, but more of a debate for teams that previously did not compete in 3-4 events each year.

Good question.

[Joey P]

Team 1676 has a big group of students this year, and we have in previous years. In our high school, we have a computer/engineering room that is big enough to hold our team and mentors. Some advice that I can give you is: 1) If you can't hold your team meetings in a single classroom, try to hold them in the cafeteria, or library in your school that way everyone can attend the meeting. 2) Our team has a program called Pi-Tech Academy, which is very similar to what you said on how you train the rookies on your team. I don't think that your going wrong there, but what you should do is have a sub team leader for each thing on the team and then the students who want to do that sub team; let them created a schedule with the sub team leader on when they will be taught different things that they should know prior to build season. That is how we teach our rookies and it has been good so far. Hope this advice helps!