[Hot_Copper_Frog]

Over the years, I’ve run into what I perceive as inconsistent or falsified claims by teams. This ranges from content of Chairman’s essays, to what students are verbally saying to judges, to materials available in the pits or team websites. I really don’t think that it’s 100% intentional 100% of the time, especially when there is a lot of student or mentor turnover on a team in a short time period.

Just as it isn’t my job to police other team’s bag-and-tag procedures, it’s not my job to police their Chairman’s submissions. If I encounter something that’s blatantly false, then I’ll probably ask some questions to find out more. A lot of the time, I’ve misunderstood what they were trying to say, or it needed to be phrased differently. It’s irritating when I have a gut feeling that a team is “padding” their submission materials, but it’s really not my place to say anything.

In fact, it’s the judge’s job to dig sufficiently deep into a team’s materials that they feel comfortable with the information. For this reason, I have my students sit down, and go line by line in the essay and any other submission materials, and “cite” where the information is coming from. We build an internal bibliography of sorts, so that if we’re ever questioned on a claim or statistic, we can just pull the source from our evidence book. Having all of your numbers/achievements thoroughly documented saves a ton of time – it’s easily retrievable not only for the judges, but anybody else that may be questioning the integrity of our team’s work.

If teams are getting away with exaggerated claims or flat out lies, then it’s a problem with the system, not necessarily a problem with individual teams. The Chairman’s Award is supposed to represent the pinnacle of what it means to be a FRC team – you are a shining example to the rest of FIRST, and should be above reproach when it comes to your facts. I would certainly be in favor of a more rigorous fact-checking process, because I think it’s important to prioritize accountability. I think having an anonymous “tip” submission could go a long way towards helping this problem, as many teams don’t want to make themselves look bad by pointing fingers at somebody else and stay silent as a result. If the concerns could be handled at an organizational level and addressed through the judges, I wouldn't mind it. I would be concerned, however, about individuals taking advantage of an anonymous system with malicious intent to “ruin” or “sabotage” somebody’s chances. It’s certainly something that FIRST should discuss as a community, and maybe we can come up with some satisfactory solutions that would put most people’s worries to rest.