the TLDR: “FiT leadership has told FIRST HQ to cancel the Early Bird Qualifier event, over the objections of local planners. As a result, the event is being converted to a “mock qualifier”, and we want local help to support the teams that are having their seasons cut in half. Read the full text below for important details.”
I have never heard of a PDO stepping in not even 20 days before an event and canceling it!!
This qualifier was specifically created for a group of kids that needed it!
But, because the ‘Board of Directors’ for FiT decided that the decision for North Texas to have a qualifier in October wasn’t approved the next logical leap was for FiT to cancel the WHOLE event!
I genuinely have no words to describe the frustration I feel about this.
Not having read your link, only reacting to your content:
Playing devil’s advocate: My understanding is PDOs are responsible for delivering and administering first events in their span of control as well as executing first’s mission in that region. So if this event was locally planned, but not well communicated with FiT and explicitly approved, although it feels like the rug is being pulled out from under you and that sucks, FiT and any other PDO would seem well within their bounds to not officially recognize unsanctioned events.
This is just despicable. The executive director and the board should be ashamed of themselves for blindly taking opportunities away from kids who already don’t have much to start with. In my opinion, this is worse than anything else that has been previously brought up.
I volunteer for FIRST because, as an alumnus of FIRST programs, I know its mission and impact from my own experiences. I wake up at 6 in the morning every Saturday for months on end because I want to enable as many students as I can to have those same positive experiences. How dare FiT call itself “a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation dedicated to empowering and equipping students across Texas” (their own words, not mine) when this is what they’re actually doing?
just because it is within a pdo’s rights does not make it any less of a stupid idea
edit: also it was a sanctioned event that teams expected to be at least one of their two guaranteed qualifiers. ideally we would be offering 2.5 plays to the average ftc team and fit throwing a wrench into those plans is really bad actually
Totally hear what you are saying. I highly encourage you to read the Google group post… it provides a lot more insight.
Here in North Texas we have, for the last three years at least, we have had at least one Qualifier along side our 10 leagues. This season we decided all the way back during the summer that one of our leagues, C League, could not maintain the League model and our PDC, who is employed by the PDO, worked with said league to create a solution. The solution was to convert the League to two Qualifiers, this would allow for the kids in the C league to have an opportunity to make it to an event.
The kids in the C League are in an underserved community… they do not have the recourses to make it to three league meets and a Tournament, that is 4 Saturdays that they can not commit to. So the Qualifiers would allow for those same kids to gain the same experience but with one Saturday.
The decision was made with the kids in mind and it is sad to see an opportunity for kids taken away.
Why? What’s the point of defending someone in a situation, when you can’t even be bothered to educate yourself on it? The linked post is only a few paragraphs, and if you had time to write a reply, you had time to read it. In just the first few sentences, it makes it clear that you were entirely incorrect with your assumption that the event was not already approved. It showed up along with all of the other officially sanctioned events, and in fact, teams had already paid their registration for it. Next time, do the bare minimum research before writing a reply disagreeing with the original poster.
To the OP: I’m sorry this happened, and this is another thing to add to a long line of concerning to downright problematic behavior from FiT. I hope all of the teams that were affected by this can manage to find a passable alternative, although I am aware that this event existed because there were no good alternatives. At a bare minimum, FIT needs to work with the teams to allow them to compete on a level playing field.
As a volunteer in this area, why should I ever be confident that other events aren’t going to be canceled? What am I supposed to tell the other volunteers that are committing their time to these events.
Just to be very clear. Everyone, including FIRST in Texas, recognizes that some sort of event needs to take place on October 26 to support these teams. FIRST in Texas is even planning to collect fees ($50/team) for the additional teams that seek to join the mock qualifier – those fees will then be forwarded to the booster organizations that would’ve normally received stipends for hosting the qualifier.
So, in all but two respects, there will be an event taking place on October 26 that is effectively identical to the planned qualifier – inspection, judging, qualification matches, playoffs, awards. The only real differences are
The event will have zero advancements, and
The additional teams participating in the event (beyond those that have already paid) will now contribute $50 for the privilege instead of paying a normal event registration fee of $200 or so.
Thus the FIRST in Texas position is this: They agree that the teams involved need an event (there are no alternatives available)… and thus one will exist. FIRST in Texas will even collect further registration fees for it. But because some mentor complained to the executive director, teams at that (necessary) event will be denied the opportunity to advance.
That is apparently the outcome that FiT is dictating – that an event be held with their support to make it look like these teams are being serviced, but deny those teams the opportunity to advance.
I’m trying to understand from the OP and linked email how the event was ever approved.
PDPs do have authority over the events that take place within their area, and it’s their prerogative to decide when events happen and where. Canceling an event without much explanation is rough, but it’s particularly confusing to me what changed since the event was approved and now.
No chip in the game - but making a change of this magnitude this late in the game is wrong.
I am not taking up any other issues as Texas is not my yard. However as a person that has planned and organized many events, tournaments, qualifiers for things in robotics and not robotics - this is not timely and very wrong to the competitors.
FIRST in Texas is a PDO/FPO organization that delivers FIRST programs in many parts of Texas. Within the FiT umbrella, there are four geographic areas for FTC (North, Central, South, and West) – each area has a “Program Delivery Coordinator” that is responsible for planning and managing the events in their area. The PDC in North Texas created the qualifier events after hearing the needs of these teams and consulting with key volunteers. (Full disclosure: I was the PDP for North Texas prior to FiT taking over in 2020, for the 2020-2021 season I volunteered to continue as PDP for North Texas under FiT’s umbrella. I left that role in 2021, and our current PDC was named as the North Texas PDP in Fall 2021.)
North Texas (under our current PDP/PDC Lon Cherryholmes) has managed its own event schedules for years, and has clearly been quite successful in doing so.
The event in question is currently in ftc-events at USTXDTQ1 FTC Event Web : Event Information , where as of this writing it is still listed as a “Qualifying Tournament”. Only people authorized by the PDO have the ability to create events in the FTC database, the local people didn’t exactly “go rogue” here.
All was good, including FiT accepting registration fees from teams for this event (all payments are directly to FiT, local organizers never see the payments until checks are issued by FiT), until the events of this past week.
(See also https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/is-1st-in-texas-broke/ , which shows that event host have often experienced long delays in getting promised payments – because all funds go first to FiT before being redistributed back to the local event hosts and organizers.)
The linked post is over 1000 words, approaching the length of a through research paper. I will go back and read it, but I enjoy taking the contrarian position to challenge others and more importantly my own beliefs in an effort to better understand the problem, the people and positions involved, and develop my own well understood position.
Putting yourself in others shoes or taking the opposite position can be very valuable in thinking logically through an issue.
Knee jerk reaction, I agree with OPs position, I want to see FIRST reach everyone it can. I can however understand that the world has an infinite number of problems and we have a finite amount of resources to allocate to those issues. Scaling that down to the PDO they are the ones that are “supposed to” have a larger direction and vision, a vision that may run counter to OP’s and my own in an effort to prioritize and serve a greater need.
I’ll leave that topic there for now until I read more - as I said I’m taking the contrarian position to thoroughly understand the issue - please point out where I am wrong on the issues (perhaps without attacking the person).
I think the right thread to pull on is what @jaredhk mentioned however - how did this event become approved in the first place or what changed? Is there a structural deficiency in how events are organized in FiT? Was this event approved out of process?
A certain founder had thoughts about changing the rules of the competition after it’s been distributed. He meant game rules at the time but the point stands and I wholeheartedly agree. For reference this is talking about the precursor to FIRST which was the MIT class competitions.
You want to really not change things. And leave things as they were stated. Because people start down a path and if you change a rule that’s really unfair.
His point there is, once a team is investing time/money into the competition not to mention this affecting ranking opportunities, it’s unfair to change the target or rules. It’s up to the people planning the competition (I’m not blaming locals at all) to ensure there are no major gaps that will disrupt the course of events.
Things like this can discourage team members or teams as a whole and make them lose interest. That is the worst possible outcome and the exact opposite goal any FIRST related organization should have. I’m a michigander so take it all with a grain of salt, but this feels wrong to me as well.
Notice, though, that my earnest questions led to an earnest (and helpful!) response. I’ve found that contrarian opinions are actually very welcomed on this platform so long as you put in the work to make your case. But coming in and saying you didn’t read the supporting material is a sure fire way not to get a serious response to your point.
Posting on behalf on someone who wishes to stay anonymous:
"But for those people who are asking “How could this happen?” here are some key takeaway points.
The Qualifier that was canceled was discussed way in advance, approved, and entered into the relevant systems for FiT and for FIRST
FiT collected the fees for the event… everything was ready to go
A single mentor or person made a comment directly to the FiT Executive Director (bypassing local representatives), that they felt this qualifier was ‘unfair’ to teams in the NTX
FiT, even after hearing from key representatives in the community, key volunteers, NTX PDC, and the local reps for teams involved with the Qualifier, about how there were steps in place to combat bias, and how the cancelation of the event will impact the community, still chose to cancel the event
The only change now is that the Qualifier will be turned into a “Mock Qualifier” the only change is that there will no advancements"
Wandering into a conversation, refusing to learn any background context, and then dropping your uninformed hot take does not contribute to discussion on this website, or really any website. Please refrain from doing this not just on ChiefDelphi, but anywhere else you may post on the Internet.
This was a qualifier (think pre-2025 regional advancement) to an area championship. The area championship then qualifies to the Texas State Championship (effectively a super-regional) when then qualifies for Championships.
Normally, teams in NTX are encouraged to do leagues. This requires teams to go to 2-3 league “meets” (which are basically 6 qualifier matches as an event), followed by a league championship that advances to the area championship. Teams need to participate in leagues as their 10 best league match performances are integrated into their match ranking going into the league championship.
Leagues, however require a commitment of 3-4 weekends from a team, which not every team in NTX can commit to.
This is why these qualifiers exist; to give teams that cannot commit to leagues at least two plays and to let them still compete meaningfully.
It doesn’t. Making teams that struggle to get to events reschedule if they want more than 1 guaranteed event plays and making the event not count for advancement does not help these teams. Leagues teams get at least three plays (2 meets and a league championship).
I guess some coach in leagues could try and make the case that having a mix of leagues and qualifiers here is somehow unfair (because in most places leagues nominally only give you a chance to advance to regionals at the league championship)…
…but NTX leagues teams can already sign up for these direct-advance qualifiers as well. Teams that can do leagues have a strict advantage here over those that can’t, although league-less teams are given priority in qualifier registration.
So on net, however, it’s just screwing over teams, and not just any teams, the ones from underrepresented/underprivileged communities that cannot commit the 4 weekends required to do the league system.
One of the really cool parts of North Texas is that we schedule for 3 league meets that feed into a tournament since we use the Child League method ( A league and B league run independently and then join together at the A&B Tournament) this tournament then feeds into one of our Semi-Area events.
The Semi-area events then will feed into our Area Event and that leads to our State event…
All that said is that we want as many opportunities for our kids to compete as possible!
