A Request for transparency from FIRST

[ICntIHaveRbtics]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Teams like mine had to have their students play a significant role in their own essays in order to get them done. We did not have time to discuss candidates, whether or not to submit for the award, etc. in two school days. It was stupid to rush this award and the right people did not get recognized, I guarantee it.

So are you saying that the people that did get recognized for the award don't deserve it? There are always going to be people that missed out on getting a chance to receive the award and might have deserved it "more" because of the crunch, I admit that, and I realized I didn't say anything along those lines in my initial post. But in the same breath we should be happy for the people who did get recognized because they did deserve it -- more, less, or the same as the people who didn't get a chance to submit, at least we know that those people did things for our FIRST community that must be substantial in order to receive the award. Not crush the credibility of the award because of the rushed process. Hypothetically if I received the honor, I wouldn't want to hear someone else saying that "the right people did not get recognized"...

[EricH]

He's not saying that the recipients didn't deserve it.

He's saying that there are a number of deserving students that, due to problems with TIMS, didn't even get to submit for the award, through no fault of their own.

Some teams with students that could have been nominated did not submit, due to the time crunch. Other teams wanted to leave the students out of the loop (due to the same reasons that students do the same thing with the WFFA), but could not due to the process. Teams that had to involve the students could only involve the students who had time to write the essays.

Saying that the right people did not get recognized may be stretching the truth, but it's a natural outgrowth of the above.

[DonRotolo]

Ending the discussion on the Dean's List Gaffe:

Let's just chalk it up to another case of less than perfect (= human) planning. I believe that FIRST is also not happy at how it actually 'went down', but when you're dealing with a mostly-volunteer organization, you really have little recourse and authority ff the person who was supposed to get this done is a few days late.

Now, if this had been announced 7 days earlier, would you have found it to be better? That is, would you be happier about how it happened? TIMS issues would have been resolved, discussions could happen in 4 or 6 days and still plenty of time to write essays, etc.

Well, how may of you have never been late delivering a project?

I can't claim to know ANY of the details, but I see this stuff in other volunteer organizations; Whoever ****ed up knows it, and maybe they won't do it again. You could cut their salary in half, but even 0.5 * 0 = 0. Sure, extending the deadline might have helped, but maybe not (and I'd hate to have less time to judge) - but hindsight is 20/20

The horse is dead; stop beating it please.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Ending the discussion on the Dean's List Gaffe:

Let's just chalk it up to another case of less than perfect (= human) planning. I believe that FIRST is also not happy at how it actually 'went down', but when you're dealing with a mostly-volunteer organization, you really have little recourse and authority ff the person who was supposed to get this done is a few days late.
The horse is dead; stop beating it please.

At Boston, Dean spoke with a heartfelt apology for the timing of the Dean's List award. He said they knew it was bad timing, he admitted it and apologized. Simple as that. It was better to announce it that late (when the idea came to the board's mind) than to just wait a year and let an entire year of graduates lose the opportunity.

[ebarker]

Dean repeated the heartfelt apology this past Saturday in Raleigh North Carolina.

Even though they didn't get entries from every team the did get a very nice pool of submissions.

Congratulations to the Dean's list regional winners. The honor is well deserved.

I concur with Don. Case closed !

[Boydean]

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

Ending the discussion on the Dean's List Gaffe:

Let's just chalk it up to another case of less than perfect (= human) planning. I believe that FIRST is also not happy at how it actually 'went down', but when you're dealing with a mostly-volunteer organization, you really have little recourse and authority ff the person who was supposed to get this done is a few days late.

Now, if this had been announced 7 days earlier, would you have found it to be better? That is, would you be happier about how it happened? TIMS issues would have been resolved, discussions could happen in 4 or 6 days and still plenty of time to write essays, etc.

Well, how may of you have never been late delivering a project?

I can't claim to know ANY of the details, but I see this stuff in other volunteer organizations; Whoever ****ed up knows it, and maybe they won't do it again. You could cut their salary in half, but even 0.5 * 0 = 0. Sure, extending the deadline might have helped, but maybe not (and I'd hate to have less time to judge) - but hindsight is 20/20

The horse is dead; stop beating it please.

Thank you Don.

[MikeE]

From this afternoon's entry on
Bill's Blog "Just 5 Days to Go" (my emphasis)

I’ll be hosting FRC Live in the FRC pits on Thursday and Friday. Join me for:
...
• Thursday 3:30PM Upcoming Technologies: What’s on the Horizon? I will discuss the kit of parts, the 5 year plan and ask what you’d like to see included in the future.

[DonRotolo]

5 year plan?

My goodness, I gotta call him and offer to shine his shoes or get his coffee or something. Wow, maybe it DID get through...

[Radical Pi]

Does FRC Live get a webcast? I'd be interested in seeing this