Something we haven’t used in the past but would like to implement this year is a system of keeping track of how long students are at the shop for each day of the build season. In other words, students can “check-in” and “check-out” daily so we can reward them appropriately for their dedication. Any teams out there have a system in place or have a suggested solution?
Our team has a sign in/out sheet on the front door. Each student signs in when they enter, and out when they leave. Hours are added up at the end of each week.
We have our students sign in and out every day during the build season. We track the hours and set a minimum amount of hours students need to work in order to travel with the team. We also set a dollar amount of fund raising they must meet.
We do something similar on 1126. We have student fill out a time-sheet each week, due on the Saturday at the end of each (Required to get lunch). This sheet includes the days the student attended and the hours they were there for each day. Students are also required to fill out what they did each day, and to get one of the mentors on their subteam to sign it, as well as rate the student on their performance each week.
The goal of this system is two fold:
One, to keep track of student hours. This system is largely based on the honor system, but if a mentor, while reviewing the form before signing, feels the hours are exaggerated, the student did not really WORK for those hours, or that the student is not being fully honest about their hours/days worked, appropriate measures are taken (generally, reducing the amount of hours that student is credited with for that day).
Two, to make our team as much like a real work environment as possible. Workers (students) are required to keep a (somewhat) detailed log of their work each week, and to get it approved by their supervisor (mentors). If not, the student is met with consequences (not being provided lunch for that Saturday until the time-sheet is completed and handed in).
For preseason and community service hours (which are also required by our team to travel) we use a basic sign in sheet.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask if you have any questions.
-Leeland
We run a home brewed login system running in excel. It successfully logs all hours from students and mentors. Its as simple as scanning your badge barcode or typing in your badge number when you come and go. Hours are then logged in the excel spreadsheet every day.
Its been in service for almost 3 years now and works with all of our teams. FLL Vex and FRC. In going through its data analysis portion, I was blown away on how many hours we put in the past couple years.
Andrew posted his system a while back as a white paper
Our team have been using this system for the pass few season
and it has worked out very well for us. We rewarded our team members based
upon the work they have put in during the off season and robotics
season. We are continuing to use it this year.
Team 2010 has just implemented a new way of logging in and out of the meetings. I was browsing around and found the Time Trex management system, and thought we should give it a try. It took some getting used to and setting up, but it is a very nice application and tells us who was there that day and automatically logs hours. Best of all, it’s free.
Our work days are broken down into two 2.5-3 hour shifts. We have the students sign in for each shift they work and then keep a tally in an Excel Sheet. From there it’s pretty easy to sort through who worked the most and the least.
We use a fingerprint reading time clock. There are a bunch on the market, our’s happens to be from http://www.bioelectronix.com/
This spits out a nifty Excel spreadsheet for whatever date range you select. For years we used a paper based system but switching to this time clock has given us a far more accurate gauge of who’s doing what.
Folks need at least 50 hours in the fall to make the team and fifty hours during build season to go to the competition. Of course many people log much more than that.
We use a sign in sheet every meeting and when they do extra hours students are supposed to sign in when they begin their extra hours and sign out when they leave and have a mentor sign off on those hours.
We use a star chart to keep track of student achievements during the season to determine if students deserve to travel with the team or not. The Star chart measures attendance. community service, oral presentation, fund raising, academic performance during the build season and extra credit (I’m probably missing something).
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/X-Cats/Photo%20Archive/2010%20Season/Week%206/IMG_9338.jpg
This is a picture of the star chart in 2010 in the middle of updating by our lead teacher.
Amazing… May have to try this… I know more students would remember… Looks too cool to forget to…
We are using http://www.parktime.com
I like it because it is an online system but allows for IP locking as well. So if needed - say - when we are at a different site for Kickoff, we can log-in and track the hours. You can also connect a camera to it if you wanted to be extra sure that the logins were legitimate - not that we’d need to.
We are doing the average hour tracking this build season. To go to one regional you need to average 10 build hours per week. To go to two regionals you need to average 14 hours per week. To go to the World Championship - if and when we go, you need to average 16 hours per week.
Take a look at the site. Hope it is useful.
How do teams handle off-site time logging without supervision? For instance, our CAD, programming, media, etc teams do a lot of work at home. Are these incorporated into your logs, and if so, how? Thanks!
Team 527 started a log system this year but its was a trainwreck from the start. No thought was put into it. People sign in and stand around and get in the way or leave and are signed out when the people who actually work leave which is usually around 5:30 every wednesday and friday. This was designed to kind of weed out the lazy people. Everyone in the club needs to have 60+ hours to go to St. Louis this year, or any regional. I’ve got about 24+ hours logged in right now, and its a bit confusing when people who just sit in the classroom and do nothing have more hours logged in than i, or people who build with me have. Our team has turned into a social club more than anything else. It really is a shame.
But if you want to use a log in system, learn from our mistakes andput someone assertive in charge of it because we did the exact opposite. The person in charge of ours doesnt walk around and make sure that people are working. They’re supposed to be signed out if that happens, but it doesn’t happen, thus the problem. That’s just our experience with it.
P.S see you guys at SBPLI 
We just use an online form for students who do work out of he lab and the fingerprint time clock when they are in the lab. Out of the lab, then, it’s an honor system with some reality checks.
With the fingerprint system you can have a real time list on a networked PC of who is logged in to see if they are actually doing work. We do have students who will do their homework in the lab to be “on call” so they will just log in if needed some days.
At CV Robotics we use a time manager system on the team website. When you log in, you can check who else is logged in, how much time you have, and you can change your password and contact information.
http://cvhsrobotics.net/time/
We are yet to log hours, but I hope to implement it this year. Unfortunately, we have some “time wasting” students who sit around and actually slow down our team, so it’ll be difficult to get an accurate measure of who is there working, and who is there but not doing anything.
This is my idea:
Have a sign-in sheet with times, and a space for the student to put down what they did before they leave. Then, have a select group of students who are usually always at the meetings, and the mentors work as lookouts during the meetings, and observe what others are doing, and when they arrive/leave. Then, when they review the charts, they can compare what they collectively observed to what the chart says.
Does this seem like a good idea?
Our team currently has about 100 students, so to log everybody’s hours would be nearly impossible. We have several student leaders keep track of who shows up, and require that every team member comes at least 3 times a week. We don’t have a minimum time requirement, because a student who only puts in a little bit of time per day can still be an asset to the team. In the past, we have had students who put in a lot of time but were counter productive, so this year, we are asking our student leaders to conduct performance reviews. Hopefully, this will let us know who is productive and who is not, and will help our teammates improve themselves if needed.
We have a binder that has sign-in sheets in it, which we add into an excel file. We then convert it into points, which are awarded for hours of work. It’s largely based on the honor system, but we have a small team so it would be hard to inflate points by a significant amount.
During my time on 126 we punched in our time when we came in and left. We had to get a specific amount of hours to travel. I think it works pretty well actually. But that is just my opinion Good luck!