Appropriate penalties for off-the-field ethical/behavioral violations

[Karthik]

For years, I've been hearing the story of a team who showed up to inspection with a hollowed out battery. Does anyone know what happened to this team? I'd be interested to see what sort of precedent was set.

This is the type of act that need a severe type of punishment. If a team is only given a slap on the wrist for this type of action, it only serves to insult all the teams who were honest and rule abiding. It becomes very frustrating to see other teams get away with major infractions, especially if they walk away with trophies. It creates the attitude among some of the "good" teams of "well if they did it and got away with it, why shouldn't we". Now most "good" teams will respond by saying "cheaters never prosper". Unfortunately as some cheaters gain short term success (because in the long run, these cheaters do lose), others may join them. It's easy to fall into the trap of jumping at short term rewards.

Types of punishment? I still need to think that over. There are a lot of factors to mull. We don't want a punishment too harsh, that it forces teams out of FIRST. (Remember, chances are the whole team wouldn't be in on the cheating) On the other hand, the punishment needs to be severe enough teams who are considering breaking the rules think twice.

[Phil 33]

There are two different threads here discussing very similar topics. I'm going to (attempt to) answer the question in this thread, which was essentially - "Or is something more concrete required?" - and use the hypothetical situation presented in the original thread - about Bluateam - to address this question.

The way I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) is that in this thread we're already assuming that said team has DEFINATELY, without question, violated the rules. Before we determine what penalties should be given, I suppose it's important to first look at why Bluateam broke the rules and took robot parts out of the pit to work on in the first place. Suppose Bluateam has always obeyed the rules before. Suppose they did eveything by the book. They didn't build anything until after kickoff, they did everything legally, and after the ship date, they stopped working on everything. When they get to their first competition, they just can't get something to work, no matter how hard they try. If it doesn't work, their team won't be able to compete at all. Just imagine what the team's mentors must be thinking "we didn't spend thousands of dollars and six weeks of our lives building a robot and traveling to a competition only to arrive and not be able to compete." The team's mentors are in a tough situation - they don't want to let their students, team, sponsors, or themselves down. So for the first time ever, they break a rule, out of sheer desperation. They take the faulty part back to their hotel, work on it through the night, and finally get it to work properly. Now they can finally compete. They don't have to suffer the humiliation/shame of telling their students, school, team parents and sponsors that they are unable to compete.

Now suppose Bluateam is caught. Everyone sees that they are sneeking robot parts back into the competition. They admit it, and acknowledge they have broken the rules - they plead no contest. Now here's the hard part. There were a dozen other teams at the competition who probably would have had to do the same thing, but they didn't. Why? These teams fabricated parts before the build season began. By the time kickoff arrived, they were already weeks ahead. Sure they cheated, but nobody can EVER prove it. Now here's Bluateam, about to face consequences breaking a single rule - the only rule they have ever broken.

Now the original question was about what consequences would be appropriate for Bluateam. My answer: it doesn't matter what consequences they decide to impose on Bluateam. That's right, it doesn't matter. No matter what penalties you impose, you haven't taught Bluateam the intended lesson. All you've taught Bluateam is to be more sneaky when they do cheat. Here's a team that did everything by the book, in the spirit of gracious professionalism, and out of the virtues of integrity and honesty. Now they've been penalized for the only rule they've ever broken. They know (and everyone knows, but nobody can prove it) that a dozen other teams at the competition cheated MUCH more than Bluateam. They built parts - including their entire drive train - before the build season even began. Now Bluateam asks themselves why they have been so gracious, honest and rule-abiding the entire time. What has it gotten them? Absolutely nothing. Now they're bitter. They haven't gotten justice. The system has failed them, and the entire FIRST community. Now they have no incentive to follow the rules ever again. Sure, next year they won't sneak parts out of the pits. They'll just have a running drive train build before the season begins to save themselves the trouble. After all, what has following the rules ever gotten them? You can issue Bluateam any penalty you want, but you haven't solved the problem, you've only made it worse. Now one of the league's most virtuous teams is turning away from the values (GP, honesty, integrity) it used to hold. A good team has become a bad one. The problem multiplies. The good are punished as the guilty walk free. Now teams ask themselves, why be good? Teams will now be reluctant to put themselves in a situation like Bluateam was in (they know they would probably do the same thing.) Now they'll cheat before the season begins. No one will ever be able to prove a thing.

Think this situation is too hypothetical? Think again. This kind of cheating happens all the time in FIRST.

The way I see it there are a few ways FIRST can go from here...

1. At kickoff, FIRST will issue a list of all the rules as well as a list of penalties for violating each rule. Since every team has been forewarned of the risks of cheating, everybody's on a level field. The previously determined penalties will be given indiscriminately to any team caught cheating. They will be issued by a majority vote of a committee of referees. This still doesn't address some of the fundamental problems:
A) There are some kinds of cheating, such as building before the season begins. That are impossible to prove.
B) I quote here, "The strictest justice is sometimes the greatest injustice." Refer to the above example. You can give penalties, but they don't teach the intended lesson. It often makes the problem worse.

2. Rely on the gracious professionalism of every team to obey the rules. As FIRST grows, and becomes less of a tight knit community, I'm sad to say that this will be close to impossible to achieve. People inevitably will try to get that head start, or that unfair advantage. Nobody wants to break rules, but people also want to win. It's human nature to convince yourself that the ends justify the means. It happens. It has happened. It will always happen.

3. Deregulate. Depending on how much is deregulated, many of these problems will disappear. Although we will inevitably see the rise of new problems we don't expect today.

4. Try some combination of the above three. Do the best you can. People will cheat. People will complain. It may be impossible to stop. But hopefully we can minimize it to the point where we can all enjoy the FIRST experience. I don't expect FIRST to be perfect. If you think FIRST (or any human institution) can be perfect, you're in for a let down.

After that long response, you may have noticed I didn’t really answer the question:

what should happen to the team? Is it enough for all the other teams to stand around and express their disapproval and say that they didn't behave with gracious professionalism? Or is something more concrete required? …Is there an appropirate consequence that is not a meaningless slap on the wrist, but also not so draconian that it drives a team away from the competition

Searching for what is truly just? Good luck. There’s no good answer here. The search for justice is older than civilization itself, and it will not be resolved in this thread. Like I said, FIRST should do the best they can (whatever that means). Focus primarily on making the entire FIRST experience the best it can be. We can have a good FIRST experience even if there is unresolved cheating out there.

[Mike Ciance]

i think it's wrong to have a concrete penalty for each type of illegal action. there are undeniably situations in which a rule is broken, but little or no penalty should be given, and some in which action should be taken. there are different degrees of breaking rules, and some situations which technically break rules, but clearly should be considered exceptions. even when action is taken, like dave said, this is a learning experience, we don't want a stupid penalty to hinder that. if a problem is fixed, i don't see the reason for serious action, unless there is a constant problem with a particular team.

as far as bringing pre-assembled parts to the competition, anyone can see that there is a wide range of how this can happen. a team would simply be bringing in a pre-assembled, slightly altered gearbox to replace an old one, or a team could bring in half a robot with totally different function. sometimes a needed custom part cannot be made with the equipment at a competition, and must be made on very heavy mechinery. i know many of our metal parts are custom-machined, and while we always have a few extra, i'm sure some teams make the mistake of not doing so.

as for illegal parts or functions, nobody should pretend this is a rarity. i have seen many robots in the past who used illegal techniques. some of these are unintentional and detected, and some are clearly intentional but excused. i have seen robots with parts specifically made to penetrate the ramp mesh (2003). i have seen wedge designs, clearly made for getting under other bots, but excused to the judges as ball/box plows. now on the other hand, i have seen several teams put zipties on their worn-down tires - an obvious rule-breaking to the veteran rule-knowers, but a common mistake among rookies. if this went by unnoticed a few times, and then an issue was brought up, should the team be disqualified? all their hard work for naught? absolutely not! the degree also needs to count in the severity of the penalty - there is a big difference between a hidden fuse and a hidden nuclear fission reactor.

these issues should clearly be judged by two factors: whether or not the break was intentional, and how much trouble the thing actually caused or potentially could cause. i have seen things that don't break any rules but are far more trouble than things that do. far too many teams have loose batteries that are exposed to impact. i have even seen batteries pulled out of robots, and i have even seen a couple just plain FALL out of robots. thats not good. FIRST spends too much time banning things that have a 0.01% chance of causing problems, when they are allowing things that have a 10% chance.

with that, i say that before we worry about how we should punish illegal things, we should worry about examining what we consider "illegal".

[Cory]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I don't feel that any penalties are necessary because I couldn't imagine that any of the fine teams in this program would even consider such a thing.

You'd be very surprised at how often such violations, and other similar ones occur.

Originally Posted by BurningQuestion

The team might not have known that they were in violation of the rules, and it would be unfair to punish then too severely for something that they might not have even known about. This should be applicable to most infractions.

Ignorance of the law does not make you exempt from it.

If I were FIRST, I'd announce to all teams that Team xxx has been caught breaking rules off the field to give their team an advantage. Everyone is going to find out anyways, you can just magically say "hey quess what guys, team xxx can't be picked for the finals, but we're not telling you why. Don't go around thinking that they did something wrong though, because that's not very nice"

Yes, this may not sound like much of a punishment, but Im guessing it's likely that no other teams are going to want to be associated with this team in any way, so they probably won't get picked for the finals (Now if they're in the top 8, you've got a problem. They shouldn't be in the finals, so here's where a ban on that comes in).

You've now got to deal with the other 30+ teams at the event all knowing you cheated. That's gotta suck, and I imagine the embarrassment and shame you would feel by knowing that everyone is looking down on you would be pretty effective at deterring you (and anyone else) from doing it again.

I agree that teams should not receieve any awards related to the offending action. But if Team xxx takes their drivetrain home and works on it, they shouldnt be banned from receiving an animation award. However, Engineering Inspiration, and Chairman's, which aren't directly related to the offending action, should not be attainable for such a team, as what they did goes against everything these awards stand for.

In addition, FIRST should write some sort of admonishing letter to the teachers, mentors, and sponsors of the team telling them what they did wrong, why it was wrong, and what will happen if they do it again. I think this is particularly effective because what company is going to want to be affiliated with a known cheater? Odds are they'll be dropped on the spot, or told to clean up their act immediately so it never happens again. Either way, the same effect is achieved.

The problem with all this is that the majority of any given team probably had nothing to do with the offending action, or possibly did not even know of it's occurrence. Most teams have a small group of members that act as the pit crew. These are probably the ones that would say, remove a part and work on it. Yes, the entire team is accountable, but a way needs to be found that adequately gets the message across that cheating will not be tolerated in FIRST, punishes the offending team, but does not ruin the FIRST experience for all those that had absolutely nothing to do with the occurance.

Is it possible to find such a median? probably not. Not to mention the fact that probably 99% of all cheating goes unnoticed, and there is a good percent (manufacturing before the 6 weeks begin) that just can't be detected.

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Cory

If I were FIRST, I'd announce to all teams that Team xxx has been caught breaking rules off the field to give their team an advantage.

That by itself is enough to make the team hate FIRST and go around making bad comments about everything. Announcing things just makes it worse. As I pointed out in my earlier post, who knows if the whole team was for it. What if half the team was totally against it, those kids would probably feel like killing themselves the moment they hear something like that announced. I know this because its happen to me many times in other sports. Putting down teams verbally is not the way to go, it just causes more problems, especially at a competition. Yes, eventually it'll become "the talk" in the whole of FIRST if a team was caught violating a rule, and its not good. And then as Mike Ciance and Phil 33 pointed out, we need to know the degree of the violation more than anything else. And also made clear what is a violating and whats not.

If we're talking about leveling the playing field, maybe taking a part to the hotel and working on it is fine(maybe FIRST decides to say its ok). You're still leveling the playing field if every team is allowed to take one or two parts to the hotel and working on them because all teams get about the same time to work in hotels. It has its own problems though.

[phrontist]

Violation of rules should be punished swiftly with immediate expulsion from whatever competition it occurred at for it's duration. Every round that a cheating team competes in is illegitimate, and deprives all involved parties of an accurate comparison of robots. No one would get caught if they knew the consequences, and if no one gets caught, everyone except the cheater goes home happy. Which is, of course, the desired outcome.

That being said, the rules should be extremely clear, with no room for interpretation. The must also be justifiable as rules that maintain either "Saftey" or "A Level Playing Field." If rules don't immedeatly make sense to competitors, they are more likely to break them.

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

That by itself is enough to make the team hate FIRST and go around making bad comments about everything. Announcing things just makes it worse. As I pointed out in my earlier post, who knows if the whole team was for it. What if half the team was totally against it, those kids would probably feel like killing themselves the moment they hear something like that announced. I know this because its happen to me many times in other sports. Putting down teams verbally is not the way to go, it just causes more problems, especially at a competition. Yes, eventually it'll become "the talk" in the whole of FIRST if a team was caught violating a rule, and its not good. And then as Mike Ciance and Phil 33 pointed out, we need to know the degree of the violation more than anything else. And also made clear what is a violating and whats not.

If we're talking about leveling the playing field, maybe taking a part to the hotel and working on it is fine(maybe FIRST decides to say its ok). You're still leveling the playing field if every team is allowed to take one or two parts to the hotel and working on them because all teams get about the same time to work in hotels. It has its own problems though.

FIRST would never make it policy to allow teams to work on their robots at their hotels---hotels would hate that, and when you're a nonprofit organization, bad publicity is the last thing you need.

And this may sound harsh, but if there's a team with teachers and mentors who tolerate extreme rule-breaking, and students who do nothing to provoke some sort of change, I'm not sure I want any of them in my organization, much less as the scientist or engineer who will be developing the technologies of the future. There isn't anything inspirational about cheating, and it obviously doesn't display gracious professionalism, so why should cheaters waste both our time and their time by participating in FIRST. This goes a bit beyond hurting people's feelings and bad reputations...

Originally Posted by phrontist

That being said, the rules should be extremely clear, with no room for interpretation.

When the rules are extremely clear, people try their hardest to find loopholes. Last year, we were told that common sense and gracious profressionalism would prevail. FIRST shouldn't have to make ironclad rules and regulations in order to function safely and without cheating.

[Swampdude]

Here's some ideas:

the inspection takes care of all your mechanical infractions.
the referee's take care of all your on field infractions

so the only uncontrolled matter is the parts right?

If so, how about we have all the teams submit a digital image of all "spare parts" on ship day to FIRST. A digital image team scrapbook will be created and given to the pit judge. On pit opening teams can bring in the items shown in the digital image scrapbook, say each team can have up to 10 items. The pit judge checks off on the items coming into the pit (once for each item) i.e. each item has a check mark next to it. So say on Friday afternoon bluateam comes strolling in with a shiny new transmission thats already been checked off he simply gets turned at the door. This would only apply to assembled items. Loose parts would still be uncontrolled as this would be unmanageable. Plus assembling loose parts in the pit isn't a violation anyway.

So there you have a controlled environment, and eliminated the need for this concern. If this isn't a good plan maybe we could work up a better one, instead of leaving it open for problems.
I could see a traffic jam of people getting spares inspected, so maybe before pits open the judges would come out in the lobby and put approved inspection stickers on the items. Of coarse this also requires container inspection for spares, but they've already been doing container inspections anyway. So just have them send any technical assemblies to the pit inspector to check-off.
We already have to submit digital images of our robots for FIRST to display, so the technical requirement for a digital image already exists. So FIRST should just setup an email address that receives these images and forward them on to each events host. Then after each each event, teams may have assembled new spares in their pit, so a new image is in order Taken their at the event, maybe the pit judge could setup a photo set and organize the image into the check box format and send the image to their next event, superseding the original image.
This would require 1 checkpoint for all pit related items. At UCF many of us found a back door to get into our outdoor tent pits, this created an entry point for uncontrolled items. I guess my biggest problem with this is people traffic. But as a team mentor, I could go along with the technical aspects of this pretty easily.

*edit* maybe for the traffic problem you could just spot check, especially the people carrying a big load of items.

[MissInformation]

Now, to answer the original question, if I had to pick a penalty that I felt was most appropriate, I would choose disqualification. Which should be enforced by FIRST Officials. As far as limits to the penalties go, I'm still stuck on that issue, but surprisingly (to me at least) I'm leaning more toward the penalties being unlimited.

One of my first thoughts when I considered this topic was that there should be some leniency for Rookie teams, after all, they're new and all that. But then I thought, why should that matter? Every team out there has a responsibility to learn the rules every year, regardless of how many years their team has existed.

Let's take a solid example of rule breaking that cannot be disputed, something like modifying a part that FIRST rules state absolutely cannot be modified. If a team does this, should they get off with just a warning? Should they be allowed to make excuses?

Which then makes me think should leniency even be a factor or should there be one consequence across the board for any violation of the rules? The advantage of this is that it would make it a lot easier on the person(s) who would have to decide if a team has broken a rule, plus it may deter someone from breaking what they consider a minor rule. Or should there be a system set up with different consequences for different violations? I like the idea of that, because I really do think some violations are not as bad as others, however, this could be a very time-consuming venture for FIRST Officials (freaky enough, I had a dream once that there was a FIRST Court, complete with judge and jury, that reviewed game violations).

Should a team be kicked out of FIRST? I would think that would be too extreme, however, I can think of plenty of instances where it would be perfectly acceptable to kick a student off of a team. Maybe a team that is a repeat offender in breaking the rules should have to take a year off. And maybe that team should have to come back as a Rookie team... but then, maybe that's too extreme as well.

There will probably always be someone who wants to deliberately bend or break the rules, but if appropriate penalties are created and enforced (enforcement is key here because without enforcement making a penalty is useless), maybe it will get rid of the "accidental" breaking of rules because more time will be spent learning and understanding the rules.


Heidi

[Andrew]

How does kicking teams out of FIRST or out of a FIRST Regional (for which they've paid good money) contribute to FIRST's mission?

I agree that when mentors openly cheat, it sends a poor message to their students. This can be seen in the behavior of the whole team, especially the young-uns.

Regarding cheating in FIRST... any system of probation or severe penalties is going to hurt FIRST more than it helps. Why? If FIRST has to impose a severe penalty, it must perform a thorough investigation (such as might hold up in a court of law). Otherwise, it might find itself sued for Breach of Contract and face punitive damages in addition to refund of entry fees.

FIRST does not have the resources to perform such investigations.

FIRST would also have to make sure that its rule-book was air-tight and that it did not violate any of its own promises. For instance, FIRST promises that it will provide "random" matches in qualification rounds. Has it ever fulfilled this promise?

If you look at the situation that started this thread, Bluabot tweaked a gearbox in the hotel and is being threatened with team dissolution! Talk about an "out of proportion" response!

That having been said, the current "honor system" needs some tweaks.

So, what requirements should a punishment system meet?
1. It must be open to public scrutiny.
2. Its scope should be limited to the event at which the infraction(s) occurred.
3. The penalties should be mild enough that the disagreement between the team and FIRST will not escalate. The penalties should be severe enough so that they are not lightly imposed.
4. The system should be designed to move the infraction towards rectification, rather than repaying an injury with an injury.
5. It should not be so resource intensive or distracting that the Punishment System detracts from the Competition.

In the case of severe penalties (such a Disqualification), all teams at the Event are affected. Therefore, they should be involved in the decision to punish as well. For instance, the team being considered for DQ might be your alliance partner in an upcoming match. Or, they might be the opponent of a team ranked above you and the DQ might give that team an automatic win.

Perhaps a jury pool pulled from the team leaders of teams at a competition could listen to the pros and cons of the complaint and render a verdict.

For minor offenses, a system of fines or fouls might do the trick. Similar to fouls in basketball or hockey.

For instance, your team might be barred from its pits for an hour if it is caught bringing in illegal parts (and the parts themselves are impounded). Note: if the parts themselves are your drive system, impounding them would effectively be a Disqualification offense and should be reviewed.

Or, a team might have to pay a $50 fine to FIRST for "cheating" (subject to review by a "jury"). Such fines would have to be paid before the team could register for the next competition season.

[Mike Ciance]

Originally Posted by phrontist

Violation of rules should be punished swiftly with immediate expulsion from whatever competition it occurred at for it's duration. Every round that a cheating team competes in is illegitimate, and deprives all involved parties of an accurate comparison of robots. No one would get caught if they knew the consequences, and if no one gets caught, everyone except the cheater goes home happy. Which is, of course, the desired outcome.

That being said, the rules should be extremely clear, with no room for interpretation. The must also be justifiable as rules that maintain either "Saftey" or "A Level Playing Field." If rules don't immedeatly make sense to competitors, they are more likely to break them.

it's a proven principle that strict rule encourages rebellion. if FIRST is reasonable people will obey the rules out of morals, not fear

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Mike Ciance

it's a proven principle that strict rule encourages rebellion. if FIRST is reasonable people will obey the rules out of morals, not fear

Unfortunately I don't subscribe to that idea. Can you back up your statement with facts?

I will use speeding as an example. There is a posted speed limit. If there is not strict enforcement of the limit and there are no penalties for breaking the law then you will find that over time a majority of drivers will exceed the limit. You can see it on the highways all the time. Even with enforcement people try to find ways around it. Radios, cell phones and radar detectors are all used to help one break the law. I believe that rebellion comes when unfair and unwarranted rules are imposed without consideration of the individual or mass. They are usually self serving rules as well.

[Mike Ciance]

Originally Posted by Steve W

Unfortunately I don't subscribe to that idea. Can you back up your statement with facts?

I will use speeding as an example. There is a posted speed limit. If there is not strict enforcement of the limit and there are no penalties for breaking the law then you will find that over time a majority of drivers will exceed the limit. You can see it on the highways all the time. Even with enforcement people try to find ways around it. Radios, cell phones and radar detectors are all used to help one break the law. I believe that rebellion comes when unfair and unwarranted rules are imposed without consideration of the individual or mass. They are usually self serving rules as well.

you also must consider the group of people that are on the road vs the group of people involved in FIRST, and the difference in situation and objective.

on the road, people speeding is life-threatening, and any accident, even minor, has a bad impact on the experience of everybody else on the road because it slows traffic, crippling the objective of driving, which is to get places faster. in FIRST, a team getting a slight advantage is not life-threatening. it may have an impact on how the placement of teams in the outcome, but that is not the true objective of FIRST. FIRST is about learning. i have yet to see a situation where one team cheating has significantly hindered the learning of another. as long as some form of disaproval is shown from FIRST, and some action is taken to counter the advantage, such as point deduction or a late start during subsequent rounds, the main objective of FIRST is still being very much achieved. in fact, everybody will learn a little from one team's mistake. in the end, everybody can still compete, the team who commited the foul goes home with some shame little animosity towards FIRST, and most importantly everybody has had the valuable learning experience. we need to get rid of all the hostility and concentrate on what why joined FIRST to begin with.

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by Mike Ciance

you also must consider the group of people that are on the road vs the group of people involved in FIRST, and the difference in situation and objective.

on the road, people speeding is life-threatening, and any accident, even minor, has a bad impact on the experience of everybody else on the road because it slows traffic, crippling the objective of driving, which is to get places faster. in FIRST, a team getting a slight advantage is not life-threatening. it may have an impact on how the placement of teams in the outcome, but that is not the true objective of FIRST. FIRST is about learning. i have yet to see a situation where one team cheating has significantly hindered the learning of another. as long as some form of disaproval is shown from FIRST, and some action is taken to counter the advantage, such as point deduction or a late start during subsequent rounds, the main objective of FIRST is still being very much achieved. in fact, everybody will learn a little from one team's mistake. in the end, everybody can still compete, the team who commited the foul goes home with some shame little animosity towards FIRST, and most importantly everybody has had the valuable learning experience. we need to get rid of all the hostility and concentrate on what why joined FIRST to begin with.

Lest we forget that some joined FIRST to experience something unlike anything else---a competition without that brutal contact sport-esque competetiveness. Cheating undermines the entire concept of FIRST. How can you defend cheaters---the antithesis of this organization? There's nothing inspirational about cheating, there's nothing gracious about cheating...Sure, extremely harsh penalties may seem out of place in FIRST...but we're all about preparation for the real world, aren't we? And in the real world, real cheating has bigger, harsher consequences. I think getting disqualified would be a better lesson than learning that you can get away with anything if you play your cards right. We're fostering science and technology, not white-collar crimes.

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Lest we forget that some joined FIRST to experience something unlike anything else---a competition without that brutal contact sport-esque competetiveness. Cheating undermines the entire concept of FIRST. How can you defend cheaters---the antithesis of this organization? There's nothing inspirational about cheating, there's nothing gracious about cheating...Sure, extremely harsh penalties may seem out of place in FIRST...but we're all about preparation for the real world, aren't we? And in the real world, real cheating has bigger, harsher consequences. I think getting disqualified would be a better lesson than learning that you can get away with anything if you play your cards right. We're fostering science and technology, not white-collar crimes.

We all have been saying what the penalties might be for the cheaters and also what is our opinion in general. now lets state the problem...

"What do you feel is appropriate and how should this be enforced? Who who do the enforcing and should there be any limits to the penalties." - Steve W.

few respective members said that we should penalize teams, and few other respective members said that we should just let it go, because we dont want to lose teams. most of us said that FIRST should be enforcing these and few said that there should be limits (they posted the limits that we should have). (PLEASE correct me if i am wrong).

Here is a question for all of you (it was mentioned before, but i didnt see any response)..

"How would you know if a team is cheating? and if you do know, how would you prove it?"

as I mentioned earlier in my other post, that is when "Honesty" comes into play.

-Arefin