![]() |
Re: Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations
You can build as many practice robots as you like. You are allowed by last years rules to keep your controller to do programming. I see nothing that your team did that was wrong.
|
Re: Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations
Here are my thoughts:
1. Penalties should be given out if it can be determined someone did something unethical. However, I do not like the idea of penalizing an entire team for something that was most likely the decision of one to a few people. My personal preference would be to see the person(s) involved get banned based on the severity of his (their) actions. A smaller issue would warrant banishment for the rest of the day, a larger one would be banishment for the rest of the competition and the next to be attended. These people would be put on probation for the rest of the competition season and possibly the following year based on the severity of the actions. Something that was completely egregious would warrant banishment from all competitions for the rest of the competition, as well as being banished from participating in any way with any team during the following year. 2. This would be enforced (based on guidelines put that FIRST puts out) by the top five people at a regional. I'm thinking along the lines of the regional director, the head ref, the head inspector, volunteer coordinator, etc. If any one among the five was associated with a team that was involved in the infraction, he could step down if he felt there would be a conflict of interest. 3. One of the big questions is determining who has committed a violation. There are rumors at every competition about one thing or another. I have a hard time believing that if I've heard a rumor that the top people at a competition haven't heard it before me. Therefore, it would be up to the discretion of the top five whether to investigate it or not. (Think of this working like the Supreme Court. The Court gets a brief about a particular case and then decides whether to hear it or not.) 4. The critical question, as at least one person already pointed out, is: What is unethical? FIRST would have to come up with its own guidelines as to what it believes the answer is within the context of FIRST. 5. The above is my ideal. Is it possible to do? Yes. Is it likely? No. indieFan |
Re: Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations
I don't think that there should be penalties for off-the-field events.
Example using last years game: I'm om a rookie team with 5 students and a teacher. For six weeks we didn't sleep and never stopped working on our robot. On the ship date, we finally got our drive-train working. We were unable to add the retractable wings we designed. We have all the pieces, but they take at least an entire day to put together. We can only afford to travel to our local regional. It's our only chance to make it nationals and we would have to do some fast fund-raising if we did. We show up at our regional with our wings assembled. They only need to be secured to the frame and wired. We attach them and compete. Should we be penalized for building after ship? If yes, I fear the competitions will turn into taddle-tale competitions. Teams will report everything they can find about a team, in hopes to gain an advantage. I don't think there should be any penalties. I think everyone should just have to trust everyone else. Sorry if I'm bringing back old points. |
Re: Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations
Quote:
This shows that when notified the team will handle things internally. |
Re: Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations
I agree with that, that most teams are ethically good and will work to solve a bad problem if they are notified. However, for teams that aren't, there should be penalties. The penalties shouldn't be too harsh or severe, but they shouldn't be a slap-on-the-wrist. A few options are public humiliation ("and team abcd wins....the poor sportsmanship award" or "the cheater award", with background music selected by Dave Lavery at will), although I wouldn't use that too often. Another option is to fine a team (like $1000 to $2000 per offense, and increasing fines each time) for something moderately serious. To take humiliation to the extreme, FIRST can also contact the sponsor of the team, and they will usually give some type of penalties (unless the main sponsor is a student who discovered 2 tons of gold in their backyard).
As for the battery case, I am sure that a more serious (criminal???) charge can be levied against the team, since it is very dangerous to do that to a lead-acid battery. I am certain that there are laws against the ill usage of a battery, and the violating team can (and should) be prosecuted (The penalties may be worse under the Patriot Act :yikes: ). But generally, the first step is to notify the team of the problem. If it is not an immediate threat to the lives of others, the problem should be told to all of the team's mentors, and they will mostly do the right thing. If not, then fining may be the only answer. |
Re: Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations
I can't read much more of this thread, it really breaks my heart that we are even discussing penalties. While I feel that we should try to level the playing field as much as possible for all teams in the aspect of the game, what happened to trusting teams to act with gracious professionalism? If we try to enforce penalties for situations like this, situations in which we should trust teams, or where teams might not even know they are breaking the rules, it is going to end up like the kids who realize their parents dont trust them. The less the amount of trust we give, the more teams will push back and try to find ways to break the rules behind our backs (ie the code hackers trying to get the password ahead of kickoff).
Perhaps I am just an optimist and see people (especially FIRST people) as inherently good in nature and intention, but I really feel strongly that we should just leave it to the honor system. I look back on my own childhood and how my father gave me all the trust in the world (never had a curfue, etc) and in turn, if I ever did break the rules, even if he didnt find out, the guilt was way worse than any punishment. Just my thoughts... lets trust eachother, we should have ethics, not enforce them. |
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 23:57. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © Chief Delphi