Do LRIs wield too much absolute authority?

FIRST General Forum
1

At RIDE last weekend, the Lead Robot Inspector rolled out a new inspection procedure unique to that event. Unofficial FIRST forms were distributed to document withholding allowance and the forms said that robot inspectors reserved the right to photograph all or part of the withholding allowance.

They also used the colloquialism of “cheesecaking” as though it was a legal definition in the manual. A team leader and robot inspector were required to sign off on the form as if it were an extension of the robot inspection form.

A supplementary form for “cheesecaking” was also provided and seemingly made up rules like saying that asking back for potetnially expensive robot parts would be in violation of “Gracious Professionalism” and requiring that recipient teams modify the robot themselves. I made a good faith effort to find wherever these provisions could be allowed within the rules, but the only provision I can find is the start of Section 9 in the Game Manual:

At each event, the Lead Robot Inspector (LRI) has final authority on the legality of any COMPONENT, MECHANISM, or ROBOT. Inspectors may re-inspect ROBOTS to ensure compliance with the rules.

This leads to what we experienced last weekend at the Central Virginia District Event. We finished our last match at around 7:40 PM, and was the last of our 6 match drought of wins. It was a rough day for our drive team and I had to console some members who were distressed at the situation. The event ran behind schedule, and while the field staff did a great job of getting all scheduled matches for the day completed, we still only had 20 minutes before the pits closed.

While we were cleaning the pit up (we had a battery cell short between our second-to-last and final match, slowing down the pit cleaning for the night), the Senior Robot Inspector for FIRST Chesapeake came by our pit and threatened to take away our inspection sticker if we did not leave the pit immediately. The time was 7:55 PM, and the pits closed at 8. After bringing that up to him and asking him to cite the rule, he said “I’m the Senior Robot Inspector for FIRST Chesapeake, I can do whatever I want.” We apologized for apparently upsetting him for our presence and he wandered away. I dealt with more distressed students after they heard that, and we left shortly thereafter.

While I do not think that he should have said that to us, nor do I think he should be able to take away our inspection stickers, under the rules in the manual, he did have the right to do that. We are very glad he did not do that to us because being unable to compete with our robot the next day would have negatively affected our drive team, our partners, and our chances for district championships. In the future though, I wonder, should Lead Robot Inspectors have such absolute and final authority if they, in my opinion, abuse that authority?

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I do not think that the line you quoted from the admin manual should give the LRI the authority to “do whatever he wants”. This sounds like a power trip to me. :mad:

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While the vast, vast majority of key volunteers I have interacted with have been nothing but outstanding professionals, I too worry about the increasing number of rules that defer ultimate authority on matters to specific individuals, without any possibility for recourse via e.g. a call to FIRST HQ, a discussion with the event planning committee, etc. As events continue to grow and expand, not every event will get access to the same quality volunteers we all know and love, and it’s possible new volunteers will let things slip too far without teams having any meaningful ability to respond.

4

One unfortunate thing that I worry about is interactions like this will heavily dissuade students who become alumni from remaining involved as volunteers, if not mentors.

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5

But yet that is exactly what this line does. Not to mention the Q&A, which likes to point out that the LRIs at each event have final say.

I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of volunteers are great people but there always seem to be a few bad apples and they spoil the bunch (There I go mixing metaphors again).

6

Exactly the opposite for me. What drives me to do the best I can as a volunteer are the experiences I had as a student when I perceived the lack of a key volunteer’s effort or astuteness.

7

We had a similar experience with the Senior LRI for FIRST Chesapeake at about 7:55pm on Friday March 18, but we thought he was joking!! Certainly he wasn’t being entirely serious with us. If he had talked to the FIRST Chesapeake staff he could have known that, at that moment, Triple Helix students and mentors were helping to build the playing field for the Hampton Roads event by replacing missing fasteners, tapping standoffs for the airship railing assembly, and arranging our tools and parts in a way that they could be accessed easily by CHS volunteers who had asked to borrow them overnight.

8

There’s a huge difference between being the final authority on the legality of the robot, and implementing new arbitrary rules.

I will say that LRI’s have to figure out how to enforce many things without formal documentation from FIRST. For example, in Iowa I utilized a reinspection form. It wasn’t anything teams had to sign, but it was something that FIRST didn’t provide. It allowed me and my inspectors to keep track of when teams got reinspected and what changes they made. That way, if there was a challenge on the field about a reinspected robot I would have the documentation I needed to be able to appropriately answer questions and provide a ruling. I also created a rope inspection log that allowed us to keep track of tag numbers for ropes that had passed inspection, when they were inspected, and what team brought them up. Again, nothing that FIRST provided, but it allowed me to ensure that if questions were raised, I could actually answer them.

I’ve never given teams any sort of documentation regarding withholding, but I have gone around after pits close to see what got past me and my inspectors, and on occasion have found withholding that was more than 30 lbs and needed to be resolved before the team opened their bag.

Having not seen the documents from RIDE, I can’t really comment on them… other than to say, if you felt it was over the top, document it yourself (take a picture of it!) and send that documentation to FIRST.

Even though you can’t go above an LRI’s head about the legality of your robot, you CAN bring negative interactions with volunteers (including the LRI) to the attention of those that can do something about it. Talk with the Volunteer Coordinator, they will be on site. Talk with the Chairman of the Planning Committee, they should be on site as well. If available, talk with the RD. If none of them are receptive, send an e-mail to FIRST.

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Ed, this is not meant to be a post to bash volunteers. I love our volunteers! I love our regional staff! I just wanted to provide context to ask a question worth of discussion: with odd, isolated issues like these happening at events, should lead x volunteers have unimpeachable authority for the whole event? There is no right or simple answer here and I thought it worthy to attempt the discussion.

We had an alumnus volunteer to be a robot inspector for this event and I wonder if this interaction colored him negatively. I would love to volunteer as much as I could, but as one of the key advisors and one of 2 consistently available mentors to team 422 I encourage students and alumni to volunteer as much in my stead so I can continue to lead our team of 60 students.

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FIRST is a volunteer-driven organization. Just like on teams, if a specific person is willing to put in the time, they can achieve positions of authority, even if they’re terrible.

As for ultimate authority, somebody has to have it, and it should probably be somebody physically at the event. Key volunteers confer with HQ on tough calls all the time (and perhaps that should be mandatory/documented), but ultimately, the authority should rest with someone at the event, and I can’t think of anybody better than the LRI in this case.

11

Hmmmm.
Wonder if that would affect play??

12

Have any considerations been made to have these things made official and available? The reinpsection processes and withholding allowance processes have remained largely unchanged for some years. If it is something that requires inconsistent, unofficial documentation to just get by, maybe it is prudent to take a proactive approach for the 2018 season and make such processes officially delineated.

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13

I think this encapsulates my thoughts pretty well. I don’t know of what process would be superior to the LRI having final say. I certainly wouldn’t want someone not on site and thus not capable of seeing my robot in person making any decisions regarding the legality of my robot.

14

Ok … I took a breath and have calmed down …

I agree that at times, some of us my go out of bounds for whatever reason. I suggest that if you have a bad experience, no matter which volunteer gives it too you, you should contact the Regional Director and describe what happened. The Regional Director is the one who ultimately balances the customer experience with the resources at hand. If warranted, the RD will instruct the Regional Volunteer Coordinator to make some adjustments for the next event.

I believe most of us LRIs are reasonable people. We try to balance your experience with what we are told by way of the official rules, however, the sheer volume of those rules, updates, and especially the Q&A can keep us a bit confused and frustrated. Ultimately, you should have a positive, fair, and consistant experience from event to event. Clearly we have some work to do to get there.

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All teams should receive an email from FIRST with an event survey via their main and alternate contacts. Please make sure to address issues like this via that survey. Event volunteers are just that, volunteers, and everyone can have a bad moment or bad day but if there is a documented history of habitual over-reach (perceived or actual) then those volunteers can be replaced in the future. The event survey is your team’s opportunity to to “grade” the event and volunteers. Please participate in the surveys so we can all make the events a more positive experience in the future. If you feel your particular concern isn’t addressed via the survey please email FIRST directly with your concerns.

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Wil, I think this is more of an off-hand joke that might have been misinterpreted as you were under a bit of stress at the time (and I can relate to that a lot this year).

The Senior LRI has helped out our team a bit this year regarding bumpers and a few other things inspection wise we were worried about.

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I guess I should be clear that I do fill out all surveys and complete non medical incident/safety concern forms for issues that warrant them. I am doing this weird thing now compared to how I used to be where I am making a concerted effort to develop positive relationships with FIRST Chesapeake staff and key volunteers. I just don’t know what, if any, re-examining of the section 9 preamble should be made in the short and long term.

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18

I had an experience at Utah with the LRI. I was an inspector the first day and ended up inspecting over half the teams at the event, and every rope had to be checked. The first rope we inspected the LRI walked with me and the team and made them put it up on the field (we didn’t have a spare davit) to show how they take it off. That was perfectly fair and made sense, and he ended up okaying how they did it.

The rest of the day if a team wasn’t sure how to tie their rope at the top I would suggest that method, as I knew it had been approved by the LRI.

Day 2 rolls around, quals go fine. Then playoff day comes around and the LRI began to go onto the field after every robot was down and look t each rope again. Now, they all have those blue zip ties on them, so you can easily see from a distance what had been inspected, and the field reset all knew what to look for the tag. There were no problems of teams bringing illegal ropes in.

However, one specific team, from Canada but I don’t recall their number (4334 I think?) was putting their rope up, which again the LRI had approved it, then another inspector had approved it, and I approved it as well.
He walked onto the field and told them it wasn’t okay, and he had changed his mind, and they needed to redo it right then. On the field. After the FTA gave the thumbs up. Seconds from the match starting.
Obviously the team was mad, I was pretty upset because it made me feel like I shouldn’t even bother inspecting if he was going to do that, the FTA and field crew was upset because it caused needless delays (took over 5 minutes because he kept saying no to their knots), and overall was just ridiculous.

There, in my opinion, needs to be a check on the power of the LRI.

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Without speculating on the specifics since I wasn’t there… LRI have the final interpretation of robot rules. Somebody has to and there isn’t time to take everything to the other Frank. :] But they are supposed to interpret the rules as written, not make them up. As I understand it, the FTA is the final authority at the event with the ruling triumvirate loosely being the LRI, Head Referee, and the FTA. I don’t see the issue with additional forms to help document withholding, rope inspections, etc as long as they are not adding rules.

Anyway if some one is creating rules that are not there and negatively impacting the experience, document it. The non medical incident form at pit adim, the regional director. Email First directly. PM Al on this board. The management wants a positive experience, but they cannot fix what they don’t know about…

20

I certainly hope it’s true. For myself, I’ve never had to pull an inspection sticker for a team. But I have had to tell a team that specific items needed to be fixed before they could go back on the field, and then most often stationed an inspector in their pit with them to both ensure it’s done safely and to provide them with a rapid turnaround time on the reinspection.

As an example, one team this past weekend came up for the playoff reinspection after their last qualification match and were missing one of their bumper supports (It had broken off at some point). As they were no longer in compliance with R31, I had to require them to fix it before I could sign off on them playing Saturday afternoon - effectively that “pulled their sticker” for the time I was eating lunch (All the RI’s were eating lunch as well, and knowing the team fairly well, I knew they didn’t need an inspector in their pit while they fixed it), and restored it when I came back down and reinspected them, well before playoff matches started up.

Having helped clear the pits after pits closed in the past (as in telling teams that pits actually closed 10 minutes ago and they really do need to leave), I can appreciate any frustration other volunteers on that duty may have. So many students are just so energetic and dedicated, they would stay there all night working if they could!