This is a good mentor topic. Transportation is the biggest difference with the team I am with now, everything else is basically the same with the team i’m with now, so I’ll address that at the end.
On 1403, we were awesomely lucky to be in a school. Our head mentor, was a teacher, who’s wife was basically the team mom. We would have central transportation (coach bus to regionals, close enough) or a school bus to our home regionals or a school bus to the airport, where we’d be on the same plane. There was a strict set of rules that we would have to abide by as it was a field trip and we were associated with the school. The biggest part that our team mom put together was dinners. We’d pay ahead of time all the money we’d need, and during each day at breakfast we’d get $10 for lunch and $20 for dinner. Lunch we usually ate within the arena, or if a mentor escorted us, somewhere outside. Dinner would either be everyone eating somewhere together (reserved ahead of time) or it would be at a food court (like in ATL Omni Hotel).
On 4096, we’re a community centered team from 8 different schools. As this was our rookie year, but had quite a bit of FRC alum experience, we decided to try an interesting route. We put together a booster club for the team, made of parents, who basically organize the parental support effort for the team. So during build season, they kept our “pantry” stocked full of snacks, some even tried to stock it with healthy food, which was a very impressive effort. They later on became mainly responsible for the transportation. Since we were going to do a convoy of sorts, we had all the parents that were able to drive indicate so (we had some going on Friday, some leaving on Friday). Then we sat down, looked at how many people were going there, and how many were coming back. We then basically sat down one night, and tallied about how many cars there are and how many spots, and worked all that stuff out. This was honestly the most grueling and complicated part, and we didn’t get this done for a long time, especially cuz our college mentors (like myself) were home for spring break and went to the competition straight.
The next part was timing, we had one early car, to head out on Wednesday around 3:00pm, to get there and move stuff into the pits. We also had another parent, who took their family, with them way early on Wednesday to hang around the city (Midwest Regional -> Chicago). The early car, and the parent each had vans, so we split all the stuff about 50/50 into both of these cars, and they met up at around 7:00pm and unloaded the pits. The rest of the group left around 5:00/6:00 and got to the hotel at around 9:00.
Prior to all of this we also already had a schedule set up, so we knew basically who was going to be where, and similarly to 1403 (
my idea), collected money ahead of time for all of the dinners. One of the booster club parents, made reservations for Thursday night, Friday night was team social, and reservations on Saturday night.
We have a unique team structure, in that there are “competition” subteams, so all students have specific roles, and for each subteam there was essentially one mentor. There was the Pit Crew, the Drive Team, the Spirit / Team Interfacers, the Scouters. During competition, there was always stuff to do, and we knew general locations of all the students. None of them were allowed to leave the arena, just so we know where everyone was.
For Thursday, we knew that the pit crew might have to stay back to do some work, so we had two groups. The main group was the rest of the team, who went ahead and went to dinner. The pit crew and 3 of our mentors, stayed till 8:00pm and did dinner on their own (paid for by the head mentor). Thursday was a fun day, so once we got back to the hotel, as long as a chaperone was accompanying them they could roam around. Team meeting at 9:30pm, then split up into subteams and do some work, before hitting the sack at 11:00pm. Meetings for subteams was done in mentor rooms (…my bed’s pillows disappeared :(.
Friday morning there were chaperones walking around waking up students, and we had a team meeting in the morning at 7:35. Leave at 7:40. Team Social - so entertainment, dinner taken care of. Team Meeting 9:30, subteams and curfew at 10:30pm.
Saturday morning huge chant/cheer in the hotel lobby :D/meeting. After awards ceremony, gather in the lobby, load both vehicles with pit crew. Everyone meet at lobby, and divide into their rides. Parents/chaperones take head count (one final cheer and group pictures), then off to Fudruckers for dinner.
So while that is RIDICULOUSLY detailed, main answers. Meetings with parents ahead of time. They need to know what’s up and students have to get a PARENT signed permission form, so parents know what’s going on. We distribute a lot of e-mails/info flyers to students/parents. Team members are the same.
Everyone has a task assigned, during the entire day, so they should be where they need to be for those tasks. It’s understood that once you’re done with the day, you go back to the stands and wait with the team, so everyone gathers in the stands/everyone is notified via text/calls where the group is.
PM me for more questions, this is a topic that I was pretty heavily involved with both as a student and a mentor.