Newton’s FIRST Robotics team began its trek to the World Championships in St. Louis early this morning following a send off party outside of Newton South. The caravan included 47 people, two U-Haul trailers and seven minivans.
The team and parent drivers will spend a total of four days on the road including 40 hours of driving. Each vehicle was decorated with LigerTails on the cars (that’s LigerParent and Village 14 blogger Chuck Tanowitz attaching a tail in second photo.)
The LigerBots earned an invitation to the FIRST World Championships after being one of four teams from New England chosen to compete for the Chairman’s Award, the top award offered by FIRST. The team is also ranked 10th out of 175 registered teams in New England.
As you may recall the caravan was needed because the team was unable to find an city-approved bus that could take them to the finals.
You can follow the team on Instagram, Twitter and their own blog.
It was worth waking up and heading over to Newton South at 6:30 this morning to see all the kids, parents and liger-stuff being loaded into this caravan.
But a part of me couldn’t help but wonder if a sports team heading to a national championship might have had better success securing a different transportation option. Did our School Department contact any of the approved bus lines directly to see if they could find a solution or was this just left to the parents?
It would have been great if something could have been worked out with the buses provided by FIRST.
It is a shame they had such a short time to find a way to go and that nothing was at least in the works as an option just in case they were to win the chance to go. From comments on other threads, it seems plans are being worked on for next year.
Go LigerBots!! I like the tails.
I’m glad for the team, but worried about ground transportation for such a long trip. Shame on the School Committee for not stepping up and finding a way to fly the team. Obviously the SC would rather take the risk and have the kids drive. It’s like the SC members never even heard about the Oak Hill bus crash. I had no respect for them before this decision. If possible, I have even less respect for them now. And for all the recent emphasis Newton places on STEM, this is a classic example of how Newton schools talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.
Would a sports team have this issue????? Just curious what others think.
I understand the need for safe buses (especially after the Oak Hill bus crash); however with parents and private citizens, are the students any safe?
Yes, I think they are certainly as safe with parents, coaches and private citizens driving, than on a bus.
I also think other teams travel by bus not air.
The Oak Hill bus crash is what prompted the safety rules like not letting buses drive straight through, like the FIRST buses do. I am assuming FIRST would have more than one driver but I don’t know if there was time to try to work that out. The SC and NPS has bus company’s they use but they were contracted out for this time. This is a problem that I don’t think could have been solved or has been created just by the SC.
Well, by God, South should be there. We have a history of participation in computing and technology going back as far as I can remember. Arthur Cook at Meadowbrook and his electronics lab; Paul Shapiro and his fostering hundreds of kids in computer science.
Go South and LigerBots!
I spoke to Matt Hills briefly about this. He said he doesn’t know where the information came from that airlines had to be vetted. NPS didn’t have a problem with the kids flying. The issue was finding a bus company on such short notice.
@Marti – from what I was told, the FIRST buses have multiple drivers, so they can drive in shifts.
It came from a parent on the thread you linked and it was mentioned among the other comments not that the airlines had to be vetted, but that students could not fly with other parents.
With all due respect, how can NPS have authority over transportation choices for which it hasn’t assumed responsibility? That would be like a principal telling parents their kids can’t ride a bike to school.
According to Matt, there is no such rule that students can’t fly with other parents. He didn’t know where that came from.
@Nathan: Your comment reminded me of my daughter being told years ago that she couldn’t ride her bike to school until she took the bike safety course (which wasn’t offered until springtime), even if I rode with her. We ignored the rule.