I saw this yesterday on reddit and didn't reply because plenty of people had already given gracious and helpful comments regarding the reporting, so I was hopeful that OP had the courage to report. It's unfortunate that no details were given as to which team this is, but considering that OP was intimidated enough to not report, I feel like this issue may be deeper than we have been told.
If you're reading this OP, PLEASE report the members of your team who are not being GP about how they lead your program. Yes, it's YOUR program, not your mentor's. If you fear harassment from your team for reporting, I recommend seeking a nearby team for guidance, and possibly join them for the season. They may be helpful for reporting and give you the courage to do so.
If there are no reasonably close teams, then maybe reporting and taking a break from their program may benefit you for your sake mentally after reporting. If the problem is somehow resolved, come back to the program.
The other side of this of course, is that this is all anecdotal and only from the perspective of the student, and could be exaggerated. Regardless, it should still be reported. The situation may not be bad enough to remove a mentor, since this is not exactly the best solution to a problem we are not clear about, but if the offending mentors are notified officially from FIRST, there may be a positive change in behavior.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri
How, in precise terms, did this this team cheat? Did they un-bag their robot and work on it? Did they build a practice robot to work on? Did they build parts that could be considered part of the withholding allowance? It's really difficult to assess the situation without these pieces of information.
On top of this, even if the team in question was blatantly breaking a rule, public shaming is hardly the best way to remedy the situation.
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Although I am also curious as to how exactly they're breaking the 6 week timeline, I'm not as worried about the robot being worked on after stop build as I am worried about how the Chairman's Award process is allegedly lacking in integrity and student involvement. That completely defeats the purpose and spirit of the Chairman's Award and if this is indeed how their award is being put together, that is many times over a greater offense than adding robot parts after stop build on the competition bot. After all, it's not all about the robot.