All excursions, whether local or requiring overnight accommodations, are considered school field trips and must be made in accordance with Sequoia Union High School District policies. A teacher chaperone (usually our faculty liaison) is required for every 20 students. Additional parent chaperones help ensure the safety, well-being and sanity of everyone! Trip-specific permission slips/emergency medical forms for the school must be on file with the teacher chaperone (these forms are distinct from the Team766 Medical/Contact Information form completed upon joining the team and the FIRST Release form that also must be filled out). Volunteer drivers must be at least 25 years old and cleared to level 3. General tips for FIRST travel are here: http://www.firstnemo.org/PDF/tips_for_travel.pdf
The nonprofit underwrites a small portion of the trip expenses for everyone. Students’ families are asked to cover most of the travel expenses for their student before the trip as they are able, but travel scholarships are available for those who need them. Please contact the team’s faculty advisor for scholarship assistance. Money should not keep students from participating in the full Team 766 experience. The trip planner and/or parent chaperones should be prepared to make reimbursable payment at the point of service for group meals and lodging for unaccompanied students. Likewise, mentors and teachers will be reimbursed for travel-related costs they incur. Typically, mentors and teachers will pay for transportation and lodging up front, but are included gratis in group meals. Copies of all receipts will be needed for reimbursement.
The trip planner will need to budget for the necessary meals, lodging, and transportation well in advance of the competition and require payment from families to the non-profit as a condition of participation (not applicable to scholarship students). Experience has shown that trying to collect the needed cash from team members on the day of the event is frustrating and difficult to track. Payment up front helps ensure adequate funds will be available to reimburse the trip planner and/or chaperones who make payment at the point of service. It can be challenging to plan in advance because most people will not want to commit to the event until a few days prior to departure, but the payment “ask” needs to be stated before people can make a decision. The trip planner will need to calculate the required payment based on estimates, aiming for families to pay 80-90% of the total trip costs and with consideration that mentors, teachers, and students on scholarship do not contribute to the payment pool. After each competition, the trip planner should evaluate how well the estimated payment needs matched the actual costs and record a plan of corrective action (if necessary) for the future trip planner. Examples of budget calculations with feedback about vendors for food and lodging can be found in the folders for the 2018 San Francisco and Central Valley (Fresno) regionals found here: https://tinyurl.com/Team766Travel. Note: if not very many parents or sponsors contributed to the general fund at the beginning of the season, the payment to attend competitions will need to be a greater percentage of estimated trip costs than stated above.
Historically, 15-20 students (including 1-2 scholarship students), 2-5 family members (including some who chaperone) and 3-4 mentors and teachers have attended competitions. Confirm the headcount for each day of the competition at least 1 week in advance so that meal reservations can be finalized. Make the first call for these large group reservations at least 4 weeks prior to the event as many places book up fast with so many teams in the area.
Meals and snacks for each competition day will be arranged by the trip planner. Everyone should bring a reusable water bottle to keep hydrated. Parents provide snacks for grazing all day. When the trip planner arrives at the venue, the first action item is to secure a comfortable and convenient table where the team can come and go as needed throughout the day and do homework in relative quiet. Bring a “Team 766” sign to claim the spot. Team members should plan to attend the group lunches and dinners as it promotes team spirit and is a good time for the team to plan for the day ahead or recount the day’s activities.
At local competitions (San Francisco Regionals, Silicon Valley Regionals, Chezy Champs, CalGames), only a subset of students (drive team an pit crew) tend to go on Friday, so individually purchased concessions at the venue and/or sack lunches have been used. Friday nights end at 8 pm, so two meals need to be considered. On Saturday, the event ends around 6:30 so the team can have dinner at home. Sunday night is reserved for a team dinner to conclude the event and to encourage everyone to stay through the awards ceremony. The trip planner coordinates lunches for take out/delivery on Saturday and Sunday, as well as the team dinner on Sunday.
For away competitions (Sacramento Regionals and Central Valley Regionals), lunches and dinners for Friday through Sunday need to be organized. Everyone should plan on eating breakfast at the hotel buffet. Restaurants that have been used in the past include:
Many nearby restaurants don’t take credit card and are small. The following local businesses provide good food and service, take credit card, can handle large groups, and can deliver.
Many restaurants near the convention center are only open M-F. Others are closed Sunday or close early at 9 pm. The convention center does not allow outside food, so meals must be planned to be delivered and eaten on the patio plaza outside the Kern St. entrance. The following local businesses provide good food and service, take credit card, and can handle large groups.
The trip coordinator will reserve a block of hotel rooms for away competitions. It’s important to secure the room block as soon as possible, usually in October/November prior to the March/April competitions, to ensure enough rooms are available for our large team. Historically, 15-20 students (with varying numbers of family members) and 3-4 mentors and teachers have traveled to away competitions. Families traveling to the competition can book their own room through the room block using the team group code. Students traveling unaccompanied by their parents will be placed into single-sex shared rooms. Mentors and teachers can either book their own room or share with other mentors.
Participating hotels for each event can be located through FIRST event housing: https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/travel-discounts. Rooms reserved through event housing can be cancelled without penalty through this link prior to the room block cutoff date (usually 2-4 weeks prior to the competition). After the cutoff date, reservations are subject to the hotel policy on cancellations. Hotels that have been used in the past are the Hallmark Inn for the Sacramento Regionals in Davis and the Best Western Fresno Inn for the Central Valley Regionals in Fresno. Both offer a free breakfast buffet each day as part of the room reservation, which is very convenient. NOTE: BW Fresno Inn - robotics trailer was broken into in the parking lot overnight and there were safety concerns in the immediate vicinity. May want to consider a different location in the future.
For students traveling unaccompanied by their parents, the trip coordinator will need to reserve their rooms under the adult’s name who will check in the unaccompanied students on site. Because our students are minors they are not permitted to check themselves in to hotels. The adult who checks in the unaccompanied students is usually the trip planner or a chaperone who will also stay in a room at the same hotel. Plan to reserve 4 rooms on the room block to accommodate 4-8 students of each gender. Require firm commitment of the unaccompanied travelers at least a week in advance of the departure date to ensure unneeded rooms can be canceled without penalty and to allow time to organize chaperones.
Carpooling works most efficiently when specific riders are assigned to specific drivers. Often times students only need rides one way or on certain days. Similarly, drivers also have limitations in their schedule. It’s important to ask on the sign up sheet for people to commit with a yes or no for every leg of travel on every day so that carpool assignments can be made. Through this process it will become clear if more drivers are needed. By requiring everyone to commit to the due date 1 week prior to the event, there will be time solicit additional drivers. There is no requirement that all carpools begin and end at M-A, but this arrangement is often simplest for the travel coordinator and for drivers with the capacity to take many riders. For drivers with only a few riders, sometimes they prefer to pick up and drop off students from their homes, and that is acceptable. For this reason, it is helpful for the travel coordinator to group riders according to neighborhood.
Volunteer drivers must be at least 25 years old and cleared to level 3. Lorrene Orcutt, the volunteer coordinator at M-A, can give the travel organizer a list of who is cleared specifically for robotics. A driver cleared for another function at M-A (e.g., a sports team) can still drive for robotics, but must tell the travel organizer that they are cleared to do so.
General information about competitions and the expectations of students and parents for participation should be discussed at the parents meetings in August and November. As soon as possible (at least 6 weeks in advance), let the faculty liaison know the names, dates, and locations of all competitions so that clearance for the field trip and permission slips can be obtained. At the parent meetings, convey that students and parents must:
The fall events, including FRC off-season games in October (Chezy Champs or CalGames) and the FTC in December, are good opportunities for the travel organizer from the previous Winter FRC season to train new volunteers for trip planning in anticipation of the new FRC season in the coming Winter. Specifics about the off season game can be mentioned during the August meeting and communicated through email. The off season game is primarily attended by students from the previous FRC season who already understand how the competitions work, however these are good opportunities to introduce new team members to the excitement of FIRST.
The parent meetings present an opportunity for families to ask questions about how FIRST competitions work and how travel is handled by our team. Keep all documents in the travel folder so all team members can refer back anytime if they have questions, download the forms, access the sign up sheet, etc. Experience has shown that most families will not commit until the week before the trip. MANY reminders and even personal follow-ups will need to be issued. The following timeline has been used to solicit responses: