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Mentor-Gated Registration Flow

Run the Mentor-Gated Registration Flow MicroSim fullscreen

About This MicroSim

Most clubs write "we aim for three students per mentor" in the charter and then discover, on the first Saturday, that twenty-two students have signed up and four mentors have shown up.

The fix is an ordering, not a rule. Mentors register first. The confirmed mentor count is multiplied by three, and that number becomes the capacity the registration form will accept. The ratio stops being an aspiration a mentor has to enforce at the door and becomes a limit the form enforces at sign-up time.

The last step is the one clubs forget. Capacity is not set once. When a mentor joins in week three, capacity rises and the waiting list moves; when one drops out, capacity falls. Wiring that recalculation in from the start is what keeps the ratio true all term.

How to Use

  • Hover a step to preview it; click to pin the details.
  • The green steps are where the capacity number is computed and recomputed.
  • The orange branch is what a family sees once capacity is reached -- a waiting list place, not a rejection.

Lesson Plan

Bloom level: Apply (L3) -- implement

Learning objective: Given a mentor sign-up count, the learner correctly calculates the resulting student registration capacity and traces what happens once that capacity is reached.

Before the sim (5 min). Ask: "Six mentors have signed up. How many students can we take?" Then ask the harder question: "Who stops the twenty-first family from registering?"

With the sim (10 min). Trace the flow from mentor registration through the capacity calculation. Stop at the decision diamond and ask what the family experiences on each branch. Then follow the arrow back to the recalculation step and ask when it fires.

After the sim (10 min). Work three numbers together: 4 mentors, 7 mentors, and 7 mentors where one drops out the week before.

Check for understanding. Ask: "A mentor cancels on Thursday and you are at capacity. What should the system do?" Recalculating capacity downward -- and what that means for families already registered -- is the judgement call worth discussing.

Embedding This MicroSim

Paste this into any page of the book, adjusting the relative path to docs/sims/ for the page's depth:

<iframe src="../../sims/mentor-gated-registration-flow/main.html" width="100%" height="762" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Specification

The full specification below is extracted from Chapter 11: Choosing a Schedule and Building Registration.

Type: workflow
**sim-id:** mentor-gated-registration-flow<br/>
**Library:** Mermaid<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Purpose: Show, step by step, how registering mentors first turns into a hard, enforced student capacity limit rather than an aspirational guideline mentors are expected to police manually.

Bloom Taxonomy: Apply (L3)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: implement

Learning objective: Given a mentor sign-up count, the learner correctly calculates the resulting student registration capacity and traces what happens once that capacity is reached.

Steps (flowchart with decision diamond):
1. Start: "Mentor Registration Opens" -- click reveals "Mentor sign-up for the term opens first, before any student registration link is shared."
2. Process: "Mentors Confirm Availability" -- click reveals "Each mentor confirms which specific sessions they can attend, per mentor availability tracking from Chapter 9."
3. Process: "System Calculates Capacity (Mentors x 3)" -- click reveals "Confirmed mentor count is multiplied by the 3:1 ratio to set the hard student registration capacity limit."
4. Process: "Student Registration Opens at That Capacity" -- click reveals "The online registration form now accepts sign-ups only up to the calculated limit."
5. Decision: "Is Capacity Reached?" -- click reveals "The registration system checks this automatically on every new sign-up attempt."
6a. Process (if no): "Student Registers Normally" -- click reveals "Confirmation email sent immediately, per the registration confirmation process."
6b. Process (if yes): "Student Joins the Waiting List" -- click reveals "Added to the waiting list signup in order, notified automatically if a spot opens."
7. End: "Capacity Re-Calculated Whenever Mentor Count Changes" -- click reveals "A new mentor joining, or one dropping out, immediately updates the capacity and can move waiting-list families in."

Interactivity requirement (satisfied): every node has a Mermaid `click` directive tied to an infobox showing its revealed text.

Color coding: Blue for mentor-side steps, green for the capacity calculation, yellow for the decision diamond, orange for the waiting-list branch

Implementation: Mermaid flowchart syntax with `click NodeId call showInfo("...")` directives for every node, rendered with a custom infobox panel beneath the diagram

References