Summary
This document seeks to formally announce the WARG 2024 Competition Roster. The comp roster this year had several new elements and complications, wherein the team:
implemented a self-nomination form for the first time.
intended to bring 12 participants (a maximum set by the cars we were allocated).
needed to reduce the comp roster from 12 to 8 per updated competition requirements 7 days prior to the deadline.
therefore needed to waitlist 4 of our competition roster members, pending space at comp venue.
This document details the competition roster, the process that created it, and identifies flaws to improve in next year’s cycle.
Justification
This section will explain some of the considerations that went into coming up with this roster selection.
Timing
We sent out a competition interest form ~ 6 months prior to needing to lock in the roster. A flaw was that it did not include all info we needed for forms including shirt size, emergency contact info, and drivers license status. By the time we started weighing and comparing individual people it a rush to meet the deadline for submission. The internal comp roster list was created on April 1, 2024, approx. 9 days before submission deadline. This resulted in some rash director decisions and poor communication internally.
Constraints
Competition informed us 7 days before the deadline that each team was only allowed to bring 8 people to competition. They said longer lists could be submitted, but that anyone on the submitted rosters past the ‘8th position’ was to be waitlisted, and if the competition had space at the hotel venue, we would be allowed to bring these additional people.
Prior to this limitation being announced, WARG had decided on a comp roster of 12 people. After this announcement, we needed to waitlist 4 of these initial 12.
This immediately put pressure on leads to start ranking attendees based on importance.
We investigated doing our own hotels, but decided against this due to cost and logistics challenges.
Some hard choices followed, with the following considerations:
In order to fly at competition we must have at least one person who has their Transport Canada Advanced Licenses. Internally to WARG we prefer pilots who have followed our training path. Additionally, we want to feature a spare pilot in the case of illness or other unforeseen events in the future.
Members who participate in our flight tests and flight test preparation are preferred. Flight test participation is how people learn the skills required to have a meaningful contribution at competition.
In a similar vein, involvement in the team is highly valued. We want members to enjoy the privilege of competition, and hope their interest in the team in conjunction with their participation at competition is leveraged to pass their knowledge on to more junior members.
A leadership position in WARG, ideally, indicates you’re an okay leader. Because of the pressure to perform and self-manage at competition, those able to lead are prioritized.
At least 4 drivers are required so we can take two vehicles and drive in 6 hour shifts as per SDC requirements. They need to have G or equivalent so SDC can certify. They need to be comfortable driving for long hours with up to 5 other people in the car. Older and more experienced drivers are preferred.
We need to take a trailer to competition. The university offers trailer certification so anyone with a license should be able to get it. 2 of the drivers need a trailer cert.
All competition roles need to be filled. We want at least one person to handle the responsibilities of each sub-team.
Sub-teams more critical to performance at competition, for this year or future years, will be prioritized. For example, in 2023, Project ICARUS was a mechanical headache, and required at least 3 mechanical members to maintain and fix the drone while at competition.
List
This list was generated using the responses on WARG’s Competition Attendee Self-Nomination Form. Using the above reasoning, the attendee roster list for AEAC 2024 competition is:
Nathan Green
Yuchen Lin
Daniel Puratich
Smile Khatri
Hardy Yu
Emma Chan
Amy Hu
Evan Janakievski
Tong Zhang
Nathaniel Li
Aidan Bowers
Ishman Mann
Wherein the first 8 on this list are confirmed attendees, and spots 9-12 are arranged in priority order.
Further Resources
Please ping @Subteam Lead as soon as possible in Discord with any questions regarding this document.
If you would like to read more of the in the moment concepts, albeit with worse grammar and incomplete sentences, please refer to the below: