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

[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]

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…

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.

[system]

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]

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.

[system]

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]

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]

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

[Steve_W]

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.

I don’t disagree with your statement but you have yet to show me where you get your “facts”.

[Aignam]

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

More rigorous inspections—

You’d be surprised at how dramatically the results of each year’s games might’ve changed had there been a device to test a robot’s current, and I don’t think it would be incredibly difficult to enforce bringing illegal parts into the pit area, as has been previously mentioned. If someone were to monitor what goes in and out of the pit, surely the game would be made significantly fairer. Of course, if this were to be enforced, we should institute some more lenient rules relating to such, as it would be a shame to have a team which was incapable of competing due to such a strict rule.

[Al_Skierkiewicz]

I am encouraged that the majority of the responses thus far tend to be lenient. No one is calling for the public block and whipping. I agree with the majority that FIRST and GP requires a different remedy than general cheaters are subject to in similar life situations. I have witnessed team dynamics and find that when a team discusses a rule violation, the final decision is usually one person or a very small group pressing the rest to follow along. Those teams that get GP use it regularly as a valid argument in these types of discussions. Each year, as I meet more people from more teams, I am encouraged to find teams that I would trust to do right. Occasionally, a newcomer will briefly express a desire to skirt the rules and will receive heavy opposition from the rest of the team.
As to retribution, I lean towards the offenders being given a chance to right the wrong. Some of you have suggested a period of time when the team may not enter the pit area, removal of the offending system etc. I like these alternatives as it allows the team to make a correction, it allows other teams to make their own decisions under their interpretation of GP and it doesn’t beat the team members so badly that they want to leave the program.
I believe we need to reward the hard GP decisions as much as the teams that easily follow rules and succeed in competition. Should a team still refuse to take one of these GP alternatives, then it is their own decision. I am an optimist, but I don’t think there is a team, now or in the future, in this organization that would choose the wrong path.

[system]

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.

well as i said in an earlier post, teams who often break rules should recieve stricter penalties. mild punishments dont encourage cheating, but hars punishments discourage participation and learning. if a team learns it’s lesson from a mild punishment, i see no reason why any more action should be taken. i am sure that for most teams the sheer loss of pride that a discovered rulebreaking would cause would be enough in itself to encourage reform. like a few have said, there are some situations in which a minor rule-breaking can make the difference between a team having a normal season and a team not having a season at all. surely no more than a chastizement should be given for situations such as these. like i said, we need to consider how much of a problem the cheating actually causes.

[Arefin_Bari]

More rigorous inspections—

You’d be surprised at how dramatically the results of each year’s games might’ve changed had there been a device to test a robot’s current, and I don’t think it would be incredibly difficult to enforce bringing illegal parts into the pit area, as has been previously mentioned. If someone were to monitor what goes in and out of the pit, surely the game would be made significantly fairer. Of course, if this were to be enforced, we should institute some more lenient rules relating to such, as it would be a shame to have a team which was incapable of competing due to such a strict rule.

mind pointing out how you are going to keep track of 1000 teams who are involved in FIRST? like someone in this thread said before that, We are family and we have to work together.

[Aignam]

mind pointing out how you are going to keep track of 1000 teams who are involved in FIRST? like someone in this thread said before that, We are family and we have to work together.

Every team goes through an inspection…make it a tad bit lengthier, a tad bit more rigorous, and a tad bit more inclusive. Cheaters are still FIRST students, so you can be sure that when/if they cheat, it’s going to be creative and well-concealed. Make it harder to cheat and kill the problem at the source. I don’t really see the problem…

[Arefin_Bari]

Every team goes through an inspection…make it a tad bit lengthier, a tad bit more rigorous, and a tad bit more inclusive. Cheaters are still FIRST students, so you can be sure that when/if they cheat, it’s going to be creative and well-concealed. Make it harder to cheat and kill the problem at the source. I don’t really see the problem…

So are you saying that you can just look at a part of the robot and say when it was manufactured? during inspection, whatever a team takes to the table and lets the inspector inspect the it and if they pass the inspection, you cant do anything about it. like i said before, that is when Honesty comes in play. there is NOTHING in this world which is perfect.

[Aignam]

So are you saying that you can just look at a part of the robot and say when it was manufactured? during inspection, whatever a team takes to the table and lets the inspector inspect the it and if they pass the inspection, you cant do anything about it. like i said before, that is when Honesty comes in play. there is NOTHING in this world which is perfect.

That’s not the only way to break the rules. Just because one rule is unenforceable does not mean that we should stop trying to perfect the system. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need referees, because the teams could decide the calls on their own, and who needs judges—whomever really deserves the award would step forwards and the other teams wouldn’t even attempt to receive it…

You can’t settle for trust and honesty because there will always be untrustworthy and dishonest people, and we can’t let them ruin FIRST.

[Swampdude]

I just gave a suggestion on how to control this matter here

Also my wife suggested we just require everyone to put all spares in your shipping container. Then the only thing allowed into pits is raw materials and standard products. No assemblies. But shipping would be a little more.

Anyhow, I don’t see the need for this whole discussion unless your dealing with a flagrant in your face violator. Which I just can’t fathom. I think it makes a lot more sense to put a system in place to check the wrongs before they happen. It’s in place in every other aspect except this spare parts rule. So I think it’s actually a simple answer. Provide the check and balance. And as far as the scale of the effort, I think it could be manageable if made a spot check system. Like Aerfin said, you can’t prove anything unless you’ve got a system in place. It’s not good to have a tattle tail system instead.

[MissInformation]

A lot of these posts are focusing on rules that level the playing field, such as the amount of money spent on a robot, but don’t forget the rules that address safety concerns, such as modifying certain parts. If FIRST says do not modify the thing-a-ma-bob and a team says but if I cut this away and play with this, the thing-a-ma-bob will be so much more powerful and faster so let’s ignore that rule and they they do so, then they have just endangered not only themselves but others. The people who inspect the robots for safety do a great job but as humans they are fallible.

A team cheating may or may not hinder another team’s learning, but I think FIRST would be less inspiring if cheating was treated as lightly as just deducting a few points. Heck, if the advantage was great enough, losing a few points or starting late wouldn’t matter at all to the team that cheated. And a team cheating can have more consequences than placement. A team cheating could win awards it doesn’t deserve along with scholarships that a team that didn’t cheat could have won.

This past fall we had a little mini-bot competition (pieces of plywood with wheels, powered by drills). One of the objects in this game was to remove a soda can from a cinder block. Now, seeing as how the cinder block could damage things if it was knocked over, a rule was made stating that teams would lose points if they knocked the block over. One of the teams, mistakenly thinking I’m such a cool adult that I would find it funny, told me that they were planning on knocking the cinder block over anyhow, just to show how strong they could make their mini-bot. Personally, I think it would have been funny to see, but I really wanted the kids to get the idea that during the game, they couldn’t bend or break the rules that way, so I conferred with some of the adults and we made a new rule up that stated that any team that intentionally knocked over the cinder block would have to clean up the meeting room by themselves for the rest of the pre-season meetings. Needless to say, the cinder block remained upright. If the penalty had been too harsh, such as scrubbing the entire shop down with toothbrushes, I have no doubt that block would have tumbled. So there’s a good example of finding a penalty that was not too lenient and not too severe. If only FIRST’s problems were this easy to solve…

I think everyone is doing a great job in this thread in pointing out the different sides. I think I’ve changed my mind quite a few times today because of the points made. Maybe I’m too cynical, but I’ve been amazed by the people who can’t believe anyone in FIRST would cheat. I may not be an expert in human nature, but I have enough experience with different groups (girl scouts, little league, ice-skating, Relay for Life, etc.) to know that competition can bring out the worse in some people.

Heidi