"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[Jessica Boucher]

I am really proud of you all for handling this thread so awesomely

Sometimes stuff happens at regionals that you need to question, but may not have time to do so during the competition. I understand that if you see something that may be a violation that you should talk to an official immediately, but sometimes things happen that won't allow you to take the time out. We all know how crazy regionals can be. But what happened happened, and we can't go back and change it. But we can set a precedent for the rest of the regionals, and we can only do that by talking about it.

Try as we might, CD is sometimes the only contact we have together concerning FIRST issues. I am personally frustrated with the lack of updating on the FIRST site, and I am really happy with how the CD community has pulled together to make sure that as much information as possible is distributed. I feel that if a question needs to be brought up, that it is done as respectfully as possible, and that we all work to come up with a solution and a way to deal with any other issues that will come up later at regionals. As long as it is done in a respectful manner, I see no problem with bringing up an issue that occurred at regionals.

I was talking to my class dean last week concerning an issue that happened with another group I'm involved with at Babson. We had a raffle drawing, and they all said that they would show up at the radio station for the drawing, but it ended up that none of them showed up and they didn't make any effort to contact me and explain their actions. It really hurt me because it turned out that the winner was a member of the committee, and said he would show; so when the radio hosts called him to tell him he won, he said he wasn't doing anything...even though he lives two floors above the station.
She knows of my invovlement in FIRST, and I told her that I would never expect that issue to come up if the students involved were FIRSTers, because FIRST teaches responsibility. If something sketchy happens, we're not afraid to bring it up - not because we like to witchhunt, but because it shows that we care about the community and believe that in making the competition fair for all, that we will make sure that every student is getting something positive out of the experience.

So, I hope you all don't think Im just blabbering on about something off-topic, but I am seriously proud of how this thread was handled and of the community as a whole for working out this issue...you guys rock!