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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You're correct in that we do not know how they are actively breaking the rules other than they are "going over the 6 week limit" and it shouldn't be shamed.
However, this still represents a serious problem, not just for FIRST, but for high school programs as a whole. If adults are willingly and knowingly breaking a rule(s) and the students feel threatened enough to not speak up outside of anonymously posting on a public forum, there's an issue.
My advice to the student, if he/she is reading this thread. You need to bring this up to parties outside of your adult mentors. Not only should you be alerting FIRST, if you are associated with a school, student center or program (Boys & Girls Club, 4H, etc.), you need to bring this up with administrators. This will give them the opportunity to investigate the problem. If you are worried, talk to your parents/guardians, they, for sure, do not want your experiences ruined by something like this.
I'm not overly bothered by the "over 6 week thing" or the "Chairman's" issue, as ungracious as it is, but it's the fact that students (there's no way it's only one student who feels disenfranchised by this) are being suppressed by adults, especially when the students know rule-bending might be occurring.
I hope the student(s) the best and this is best handled by reporting it to the proper people, not hiding it.