Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Wright
So...make the system more time consuming and complex for the >99% of the teams in FIRST that don't cheat?
|
I think that's well within the abilities of the people we trust to program robots. (Or the people we trust with word processors, for that matter.) Also, the security is for the benefit of the team, so that they can be sure any error on FIRST's part won't lead to inadvertent disclosure of their robot. If they don't care about that, I wouldn't be opposed to letting them submit picture files in unsecured fashion.
It's also cheap insurance against losing the paper form—these are forgotten in hotels and schools all the time, and lead to deviation procedures that involve the head ref, FTA and LRI. That's what really wastes time. This places a modest burden on teams, but does it well in advance so that everyone can make the most of the events.
Making the numbers public would be a little unusual for FIRST—because it rarely uses enforcement mechanisms that involve the community—but in this case, the burden is essentially zero, other than at load-in time. And it has the advantage of quelling the often baseless rumours that sometimes crop up. If you subscribe to the notion that a team is violating the bag rules, then walk past during load in, or forever hold your peace. Concurrently, teams have to justify themselves to each other, and this puts additional pressure on them to play fair.
The only significant added complexity lies with FIRST. If they don't have the IT resources to manage it properly, it could indeed become annoying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Wright
If we all believe that cheating is so widespread that we need to start making the process more complex and secure, then fundamentally, at the core of this program, we are losing.
|
Trust, but verify. We still make teams prepare a BOM, even though we expect them to comply, and can't realistically check them all in detail. It's trivial to forge one, but the procedure helps keep the competition's expectations foremost in team members' minds, and likely reduces opportunistic cheating. Similarly, knowing that there's an independent record outside of the team's control means that it's much riskier to change the robot in substantial ways.
Also, acting as an LRI, I've seen a few possible end-of-build violations over the years, each with moderate to strong evidence. Some involved extra practice and refinement, and some were possible duplications of another team's robot.