Sorry for the double post. We cross posted
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday
I said no such thing, thanks.
FIRST is stating plainly that a team was discarded from awards consideration due to the actions of 1 single person (which is quite a bit different from "a team whose members" which implies many/most of the team). I'd venture a guess that the poorly-behaved student in question was identified as a "team member" based only on the shirt they were wearing too.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to put in a plural.
And I would not venture any guess as to how they knew what team they were on as we have no information/proof. You, Of course, have already stated otherwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday
My contention is that calling this event out will have the wrong impact: it's not possible to police all of a teams' members 100% of the time. Even with extensive "GP training", some kids won't believe in it and/or simply won't get it. So, knowing that, the only way as a team leader that I could avoid being called out in a Bill's Blog post would be to expunge all the "loose cannon" students and adults from my team. To me, it's a logical conclusion. However, as I said in my earlier post, the types of kids who are more likely to say something inappropriate from time to time are the same kids who could probably benefit most from FIRST. So, if you make a big stink of "we're watching you" on a blog and tell a story about how 1 student ruined a team's chance at an award, maybe you're inadvertently taking away the opportunity of a program like FIRST from the kids who need it most. I also contend that there's plenty of students who would never, ever utter the words "you don’t ****ing know what you’re doing" to an adult under any circumstances, but for the most part these are the types of kids that already "get it" and are probably less in need of FIRST showing them the way.
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Or ... you could accept that you will not win the GP award and work to inspire those that need it most.
Also, they were 'eliminated' from only the GP award (reread bills blog), not all awards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday
Of course such behavior out of any person, student or adult, should not be condoned. I guess I just hope that the evaluation in Seattle wasn't as black-and-white as Bill presented it. If a team spends a whole regional helping out every other team there, and a bunch of rookies play on the field who otherwise would have had a pit area full of parts but no robot, and 1 student is caught saying something dumb, should that team be eliminated from consideration for all awards? I sure hope not. I also sincerely hope that the team in question in Seattle was notified of this at the event, because there's nothing worse than a problem you can't solve because you don't even know about it.
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Again, we have no data to go on, so I won't comment on anything else the team 'may' have done or not done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday
Something else for thought: I'm sure there are kids in FIRST who are competitive and don't mind crossing the line from time to time. An unscrupulous student might look at Bill's Blog and figure out he has a sure-fire way to help his team out at his next event. His team is up for consideration for the Chairman's Award and he really, really wants to win, but there's another team in the running that is strong. Luckily he traded shirts with that team last year, now all he has to do is put on that shirt and go swear at a judge a little, and boom - competition eliminated. Think that's impossible? I'll bet there's some who would have thought no student would say "you don’t ****ing know what you’re doing" to an FTA too.
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Unfortunately, here, you are correct. As in my last post, teams need to guard their image. Giving out team shirts invites this, hence my suggestion that the shirts teams give out not be the 'team uniform'.
JM(NS)HO