Having met a few, that’s probably warranted…
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This is what’s really been troubling me throughout this long, long thread which is in large part about how to best break the rules without getting caught. I’ve already mostly left FIRST in the sense that I’m not coaching anything this year (and have been gradually decreasing my hours for a while before that). But if I was still involved and came to the point where the only way my team could feasibly participate is to engage the students and parents in, say, blatantly lying to headquarters, I’d say it’s time to leave FIRST. I’m not generally a follow-the-rules-no-matter-what person - I believe there are some situations where following particular rules or laws causes harm to other people, and I won’t go against my conscience for the sake of following a rule. This is not one of those situations. I didn’t get into mentoring to teach kids that not only is it “okay” to lie for the sake of getting your way/doing what you want, but our whole team will be lying to HQ’s faces in order to save money and they need to get on board with that or get out. The posts suggesting having some of your students not register with FIRST to be on the team roster, so that you can later sneak them into Champs, feels particularly egregious to me, but it’s not the only one. What is that team meeting going to look like? Would you really stand up in front of the team and say “The only way we can afford to go to Champs this year is if most of you pretend to not be on the team. Johnny, Sonia, Evelyn, and Mateo, you’re going to register with STIMS this year since you’re drive team. Have your parents come by if they need help with the system. Everyone else, whatever you do DO NOT register with STIMS. If anyone at Champs asks if you’re with our team, lie to their faces and tell them ‘no’, even if you’re in the pit actively working on the robot.” I mean where does it end? How much lying are you going to make your students do for the sake of going to Champs?
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With an increased cost and no way to bring it down, this becomes a reality for many teams.
It goes along with “We can’t afford to bring the entire team, so we will have a cutoff (requirements, money due, position on the team,
ect.), and those who don’t make the cutoff won’t be going.” Either one feels wrong somehow. But unless we can find a way to make it free there will always be teams that will try to find a way to afford to go. Even if it’s not a perfect way.
For my team personally, we will most likely just not be going if we qualify. Unless we find a sponsor to find everything, then we may rethink it. LOL
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I have been one of the ones that have cynically suggested bringing the bulk of the team as “guests”. At least on our part it is fantasy. Aside from the ethical maybe issues it is not logistically practical.
BUT One of the things I like about First community it is more than the about robot. The world is a lot more complicated than a straight forward follow the rules or laws. One of the greatest lessons we can give is helping to develop or rediscover your moral or ethical compass. One way to do this is to present multiple sides to issues like these.
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Isn’t the moustache-twirling to a great extent an attempt to cast the policy as unworkable or unjust because it invites trivial circumvention that might lead to inequity? In other words, I think for most of the posters above, it’s a form of criticism, not a plan.
Did some people miss that memo, and think I know how I can save the team some money? Possibly.
And further to this, there are things that FIRST cannot practically express in public-facing statements, but which still bear examination and discussion. Was the hotel cartel something that they were dragged into, and therefore they are just keeping up appearances by establishing a policy that serves the interests of third parties? Or, given that FIRST has disclosed that it will receive a portion of the proceeds, is it their goal to fundraise by it? Does FIRST have a state of indifference toward circumvention of the policy, and what would the actual (as distinct from stated) consequences be of challenging or ignoring it?
When even discussion of outlandish possibilities is off the table, it’s hard to be prepared to react rationally to surprising events or new scenarios. A sophisticated moral framework is something to be encouraged.
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I think it started as an honest attempt to provide rooms to teams in a rational manner. The problem is it has never worked very well. A lot of us don’t have any confidence that it is going to work any better this year. There are also a lot going on behind the scenes often at cross purposes.
There are a lot of different use cases. There are teams that know they are going every year and makes plans a year out and stay in the same place ever year. There are teams that are reasonably sure of going and like to pre-plan so their budget is set. There are team that have no idea they are going until the day they qualify. The new system really doesn’t serve all the use cases very well.
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