Let me ask you this way: You’ve had to provide references for work/volunteering/other stuff, correct? And being a teacher, I assume you’ve provided some letters of recommendation for students going off to college. How often have you actually been contacted (or, how often do you know your references have been contacted) to verify what’s been stated in those letters? But… isn’t the “threat” of being them being contacted enough to make you think really, really carefully about who you choose, or what you choose to say? Or, to put it another way… Some student who barely attended any preseason meetings (let alone build) puts on his college application that he was a member of the robotics team in good standing–IF the college were to call you and say, was this person in good standing, what would you say?
If a team, shall we say, does some embroidery with the truth (such as by using the wrong term, deliberately or not), this gives FRC judges a clearer picture of what they’re saying should they choose to verify the team’s story. For example, if a team says “we mentored team such-and-such”, all a judge has to ask is, “were you talking with this team throughout build season?” (or some similar question–maybe “describe your interactions with other teams”, which could go for two or three awards) and the team being checked on doesn’t need to know whether they were mentored–they can answer the question, and the judge can quickly make a determination as to whether or not the team actually did mentor the other team.
What this does is it provides a technical definition that can be used both by the team claiming the help to another team and by the judges to ensure that they are on the same page. Just for grins… I believe this post would count as Assisting. (I’m not entirely sure that y’all would actually agree with that statement, but per the definition’s examples it should count. Not that I’d be claiming it–way too loose for my taste, not definite enough.)
