Re: Administrative and Game Manual updates - 2/11
 

While I agree that cheating at FIRST cheapens the experience, I'm not convinced that it cheapens it for anyone but the team doing the cheating.

Save one mindblowing exception, in my 12 years of playing this game, in my experience, most cheating at FIRST involves things like pulling parts off an overweight robot and trying to sneak them back on when the inspectors aren't looking, or continuing to build after stop build day, or other things that only affect other teams in a relatively minor way.

Yes, ok, I agree, the field is no longer level when you do that, but the field already wasn't level -- and it was never meant to be. Those superstar FRC teams that are at the top every year, with the huge budgets, and the full-size practice facility, and the multiple carbon copies of their robot? They can do those things primarily because they have access to more money than most teams. Thats OK though, because those teams inspire more people than just the members of their teams. My robot being a few ounces overweight isn't going to make your robot or FIRST experience tangibly different. Teams with more resources continue work after stop build day by having a carbon copy of their robot. A low-resource team cheating to do the same with their competition bot? Doesn't really change what happens at competition any, except possibly to raise the competitiveness of the low resource team. There just isn't anyone gaining a massive advantage by cheating here, save the one exception, so for the most part I don't think its worth worrying about too much, as the cheaters are really only cheapening it for themselves.

So, in short, I agree. Teams SHOULD follow the rules. If you're not going to follow the rules, you should seriously look at what you're hoping to get out of this program. BUT. I don't really care if other teams cheat in comparatively minor ways that in the grand scheme of things don't really impact me.