The Fraud of FTC Worlds - How FTC & FIRST have failed me forever.

[ksafin]

Hi everyone. This is going to be a very long and detailed post, but I urge you to read this in its entirety because I hope it will be very eye-opening as to a subtle but enormous fraud that happened at FTC worlds.

Let me start by prefacing this post with note. I am not a member of FTC Team 5257; I am the founder and an alumi. I love FTC/FIRST dearly, and I came to FTC worlds to support my team and be in the middle of it all once again. I am disclosing the information in this post on my own volition because I feel it needs to be shared. My feelings and what I say are not necessarily representative of the feelings of members of FTC Team 5257 and are solely mine. Therefore, anything in this post is not condoned by the team, but only by myself.

The Story:

This story is regarding FTC Edison Division Semi-Finals match 3. We, ERX, are paired with Cougar Robotics, going against an alliance including Masquerade and Tesla. The record is 1-1, so a third match is forced.
Here is a video of the match, please feel free to forward to the tele-op period at https://youtu.be/5d3UuzGS5Lk?t=301.

Pay attention to Tesla's robot on the bottom left of the field as it manipulates the 90cm goal. Pay special attention to where we, ERX, and Cougars robots are. If you go to 5:20 (https://youtu.be/5d3UuzGS5Lk?t=319) and wait four seconds, you'll see Tesla drop their 90cm goal by moving up their intake.

If you watch till the end of the game and look at the tubes, I think you'll conclude that it's obvious that the red alliance won the match.

Here's where it starts. Our team cheers, excited about the match. I go to the bathroom and come back to see the score posted on the board. 855 - 600, Blue alliance wins.

My mind was boggled. What happened? How could this have happened?
As it turns out, the dropping of the 90cm goal was blamed on the red alliance. We were given a major penalty and the blue alliance was credited with a full 90cm goal.

Did the red alliance drop the goal? No. It's obvious in the footage. Here's where I add the fact that YES, I'm fully aware that video footage and replay is not allowed to be shown to referees to contest a call.

We were aware of this, and despite telling them a wrong call was made, we knew we wouldn't get much out of this.

We appealed to the gracious professionalism in the students from Tesla and Masquerade. We showed all of them the video. They all agreed - the call was wrong. We didn't tip over their goal. They did.

After some haggling, we got them to agree to talk to the referees with us. We went to head ref. Not just ERX. Not just cougars. We all went. All four teams from the match. The entirety of both alliances went to the referees. All four teams said the call was wrong. We weren't even asking for an adjustment of the score. We were asking for a rematch.

The answer? No. Why? My understanding was that it was to save time. They couldn't spare 5 minutes to correct an enormous injustice. They were saving face and saving the tournament five minutes by completely shafting our alliance. We spent 7 months developing this robot and getting to this stage to be shut out for the purpose of saving five minutes.

Not to mention - four teams, opposite alliances, all agreeing on the false call and asking a ref for a rematch? That's an enormous show of gracious professionalism, and I couldn't respect them more for that. It was amazing. And we were told no? Make your own judgement about what degree of ungraciously professional that is.

After we have haggled the head ref in excess of ten times trying to get this correct without avail, we were giving up. They were told to proceed to the other field to set up for division finals. We asked them to protest and refuse to go to the field and set up. They would have to give us a rematch.

I have complete and utter respect for most of the students on those teams. They agreed with us, and didn't want to win the match the way that it was won.

Instead, parents and coaches from the two teams (not all of them, but a sizeable and vocal group) said to forget it, ignore the call, let it happen, and proceed to the finals.

One driver from one of the teams had a "Ask me about my gracious professionalism pin" on his shirt. When his coach told him to ignore what happened and move on, he took it off and put it face down on the tables by the field. I was blown away by this.

In light of all of this injustice, it was the students on the teams that were more mature and just than the adults governing the teams. They could learn a thing or two from the students. That was upsetting to me.

That was the end. We were dealt a huge injustice, challenged it in unison, denied, and then forced out of contention.

I started our FTC team four years ago. I started our FRC team too. We also started another FTC team after our first year. I graduated from High School in love with FIRST, determined to come back every year, support it in every capacity, and do everything I can to start more teams, get more people engaged, and share how wonderful it is.

Something happened at worlds this year for me. FTC failed me. FIRST failed me. People failed me. Gracious professionalism failed me.

The whole system failed me.
Forever.