Open Letter to Jason Arms and the FiT Board of Directors

FIRST General Forum
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We write this letter in response to the now-hidden post (Note to our Community: FIRST Tech Challenge in Texas) wherein FIRST in Texas published their official statement regarding the cancellation of the 10/26 FTC qualifier in North Texas. The decision by FIRST in Texas to cancel this event, which had widespread support and extensive planning from North Texas key volunteers and other stakeholders, was unexpected and short-sighted. We were happy to continue to work with FiT and your staff privately to find solutions which honored the already-paid registration fees and planning that have gone into these events which were approved months ago. However, the misleading and distorted statements published to the community leave us no recourse but to address this matter publicly. We will not sit idly by and allow FIRST in Texas to cast aspersions on our organization as a way to distract from the poor and inequitable decisions made by your Executive Director.

Corrections to the false information published in the FiT Newsletter

Before going into more detail about what our team requested and why we believe our request creates equity for more students in North Texas we need to get some facts straight. These are not the only inaccuracies included in the publication, but they are the ones that most directly pertain to our program. Quotes from the newsletter:

“of 14 teams, with over 85% of the teams from one school that also travels and participates in the FIRST Robotics Competition program”

TL;DR: October 26th qualifier was always planned as a 32-36 team event
While not called out by name, our program represents 10 teams that were scheduled to participate in the 10/26 FTC qualifier. The qualifier events were planned as 32-36 team events where any team that wanted to opt out of the League Model could instead sign up for two qualifiers as an alternative. Additionally, any teams participating in a league could also sign up for one qualifier.

The October 26th qualifier was never planned or intended as a 14-team event. The origin of that number came from the fact that 14 teams participated in the C-League last year and that those 14 teams were guaranteed spots in the 10/26 and 12/7 qualifiers as the C-league was dissolved to form the support structure for these qualifiers.

We know for a fact that at the time that FiT canceled the 10/26 qualifier there were 15 additional teams that had already expressed interest and intent to participate in the event, bringing the total to nearly 30 teams negatively affected by this last minute decision.

“Established a special rate / financial model that would take the published “League Registration” fees, divide it between the two events (175.00 /ea) and pass those funds directly to the school’s robotics booster club.”

TL;DR: We were offered no money for hosting these events. Historically, event hosts are offered a stipend to cover some of the costs of hosting an event.
This accusation is primarily aimed at your employee, but implies we are either colluders or beneficiaries of some unethical financial scheme. This is patently false.

We had discussed with local FiT leadership about the Regional Registration fee ($300) and broached the topic of that same fee covering 2-qualifiers instead of the 3 League Meets + 1 League Tournament in the league model. Ultimately, we mutually agreed it seemed fair and that it would be simplest to keep the regional registration fee fees the same. Both approved qualifiers had extra capacity (+18 and +22 slots) to provide any other North Texas teams that wanted it with the opportunity to participate in a qualifier in addition to their league (legal by Section 4 of the Competition Manual). There would be an extra fee for those teams to participate in an additional event.

We have not discussed any hosting fees for this season. Traditionally the event hosts do receive a stipend to help cover the cost of running the event including paying for custodial services, volunteer food, and the FiT required police/security presence. These checks are paid to the school or non-profit sponsor and are helpful to make the events cost-neutral, but as a long-time event host, we appreciate the effort to provide these but know these checks are unpredictable and often paid late so we don’t count on them in our program budget.

“We feel our corrective action is proper and will not penalize our teams as they can still compete and earn advancement in their Area without travel expenses that will allow them to save those funds for their FIRST Robotics Competition season.”

TL;DR: This is not a compromise or improvement to the original event plan which also did not require travel. FiT has no insight into our budget and is not responsible for managing individual team funds. It’s completely out of place for you to insinuate you have any insight into how our team prioritizes between FIRST programs.
We as mentors know how much multiple plays spread over time are critical to students/teams to test and iterate their designs. All other teams in the state of Texas now have the opportunity to participate in official play over multiple days (League Meets leading up to a League Tournament) while these 14 teams will now be limited to a single opportunity to experience an official FIRST Tech Challenge event.

We have been offered the ability to transform the event into a “scrimmage” on that date instead of a qualifier. We deeply appreciate the North Texas community and volunteers who are willing to show up and make this as special for the students of North Texas as possible, but let’s be clear: this is NOT an official event. Underserved and underrepresented students do not deserve fewer opportunities than others.

While FiT chooses to focus their concern on our FIRST Robotics team budget, we continue to advocate for the students in our program who participate in FIRST Tech Challenge, and in those programs which had already committed to the 10/26 qualifier, who are now relegated to an experience that is inferior to that of every other team in the state of Texas.

“Texas Model” in North Texas

While leagues have existed in North Texas much longer, it’s only for the last two seasons (2022-23, 2023-24) the North Texas region (DFW area) has been competing almost exclusively in the league play model. Leagues can be constructed in a number of ways to meet local needs, but we will describe here the way they work in Texas. Teams in the same league are split between two child leagues and each of those child leagues attend 3 League Meets over several weekends to play 5-6 matches per meet. The child leagues then come together to play in the League Tournament. Only the top 10 matches (of the 15-18 played in the 3 League Meets) are retained and then those teams play 5-6 more qualification matches to make up their final rankings. Then the tournament proceeds with alliance selection and eliminations. Advancement is based on robot performance and individual awards. (Section 14 in the Competition Manual)

The benefit to the league model is that teams get to play official matches spread across several League Meets. They can iterate their robots between meets and continue to improve. They also drop their lowest scores. The down-side of this model is that for an individual team or student they must commit to several weekends (typically 4) including the League Tournament to have a full and complete FIRST Tech Challenge event experience asJudging only occurs at the League Tournament and robot and team performance awards are only given out at the League Tournament

Qualifying Tournaments are events condensed to a single day commitment where teams/students get to experience the full program including judging, matches, playoffs and advancement. Teams are permitted to participate in only one league but up to 3 first level advancement events, so 1 League and 2 qualifiers, or 3 qualifiers. The number of events per team depends on local event availability and entirely under the direct control of the local Program Deliver Partner or Organization.

Mentoring the RoboChargers

Our mentor group has been deeply connected to our school and community for over 10 years. Volunteering thousands of hours a year including in-class support and supporting other school programs while working with local nonprofits to bring resources to our students to fulfill the RoboChargers vision to “impact all the students of our school and community by opening opportunities for them to choose their life trajectory through participation in a sustainable and competitive, mentor-based STEM programs.” We are thrilled that many of our current mentors are alumni of our own program who have graduated college and come to give back.

We are a program that was founded as a FIRST Robotics Competition team, but we very quickly recognized that in order to reach the number of students we want to and to have the kind of impact on our community we want to have, we need to offer more experiences beyond just one FRC team. Over time we have participated in many many different STEM programs from homegrown projects, to VEX, BEST, and BELL VRC, but ultimately we found what we needed in FIRST Tech Challenge.

The hands-down most impactful thing we have done in this time to move the needle about how many students we reach in our community is to move FTC into the classroom. Historically, FIRST has been offered only as an afterschool program at our school which means it’s limited to students who have the privilege to stay after school and are willing to “opt in”. That privilege may mean a number of different things, but it includes:

  • Do they have transportation after school?
  • Do they have the available free time that’s not committed to sibling-care or working to support their families?
  • Do they think of themselves as smart enough to be in a robotics team?

Moving FTC into the classroom removes many of these barriers, and because participation in Robotics II counts as a math credit, it helps contribute needed credits for students who might not self-identify as “smart enough” to do robotics for fun.

Our program started FTC in 2017-18 season “Relic Recovery” with 4 afterschool teams and a total of about 35 students. Since then we have restarted our program from zero FTC teams during COVID and been able to grow our program to 10 teams, 6 of which are in-class teams, with over 150 students directly impacted each year. But these students need more than building a robot in class; they deserve the opportunity to compete alongside other FTC teams in North Texas.

Statistics don’t tell the full story of a community, but they can give you an idea about what our students have to overcome in order to compete with their peers in the state. Get to know some facts about who we serve:

  • Title 1 Funding Eligible with 98.4% of student qualify for free lunch based on the NECS record for Conrad High School
  • From USNews the graduation rate is well below the state median at 81% with a college readiness index of 15.4/100
  • An overview and history of the Vickery Meadow neighborhood – “an overlooked anthill, population 25,000, packed with people here by circumstance.”

Leagues present an undue burden to underserved and vulnerable communities

While we have been successful in growing FTC participation in the classroom, we all know that competing in person against your peers is a critical part to unlocking the benefits of being a FIRST participant.

After two seasons competing in the League Model, it’s our stance that the League Model presents an undue burden to underserved and underrepresented communities. Every community is different with their own unique character, strengths, and challenges. Our position is based on our first hand experience growing FIRST Tech Challenge in our individual community.

Students in underserved communities like ours are less likely to be able to attend weekend competitions and even less likely to be able to control their availability to attend over 4 different Saturdays. Over the last two years the data is clear: classroom teams were not able to get an equitable FTC experience in leagues due to accessibility barriers.

  • 2022-23: of 94 classroom team members only 23 were able to attend more than 1 Saturday event
  • 2023-24: of 70 classroom team members only 6 were able to attend more than 1 Saturday event

For many of these teams, there is little overlap in the availability of their team members to appear on the same day. Several of our classroom teams went through League Play last year with only one student from their team representing them, and it was a different student at each Meet. By the time we got to the League Tournament, there were students having to drive their robots who had never been able to attend even a Meet up until that point. This made the advancement from the Leagues inequitable and gave less privileged students fewer opportunities for their robot to make it to the field, in total. This contradicts FIRST in Texas’ own mission to, “support FIRST Robotics teams, facilitate professional STEM activities, provide comprehensive educator training, and organize inclusive events, all with a strong emphasis on enhancing accessibility for low-income and underrepresented students in Texas.”

At the end of last season we collected this data and made a request/recommendation to local FiT leadership that proposed a model to host 2 qualifiers which would be open to all teams in North Texas but also serve the student population in our community. We were joined in support of this model by other schools who had historically shared our child-league and many of the key volunteers in the region.

None of this was done to give unfair advantage to our teams.

None of this was done in secret.

Treating everyone exactly the same is not how we create equity.

Call to Action

  • Release a public apology for the implication that there was an attempt by our team to collude to create an unethical advantage
  • Release a public apology for the implication that there was an attempt by our team to commit fraud
  • Either reinstate the 10/26 qualifier which was canceled with less than 20 days notice or reduce/refund the season fees for all teams who have paid full price for a half season of play

Sincerely,

RoboChargers Mentors and Mentor Leads

This letter was written by many of the longtime FIRST mentors associated with the RoboChargers program. We include alumni, engineers, and business professionals and have a combined history of over 150 years of mentoring experience.

This letter expresses our personal experiences and opinion and should not be construed to represent any of the youth, volunteers, or schools either directly or indirectly associated with our program.

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Conrad High School is a perfect example of how FIRST Robotics can have a huge impact on an underprivileged community. The RoboChargers are breaking down barriers that prevent many students from participating in after-school programs. This is exactly the kind of inclusive approach that FIRST in Texas should be promoting.

My team ITKAN Robotics is in full support of the RoboChargers and their call to action. FIRST in Texas should issue a public apology for the misleading statements and implications in their newsletter. They should also reinstate the October 26th qualifier.

The RoboChargers are a beacon of what FIRST teams should strive for. They are making a real difference in their community, and are a beacon of what I want my teams to become.

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The RoboChargers are the real deal. This is the culture change we want to see in the world. FiT is currently failing to walk the walk in its FTC program, and the RoboChargers have given them an opportunity to get back on track. I sincerely hope FiT takes it.

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I don’t intend to wade too deeply into this topic, especially as a totally outside observer >1000 miles away, but after reading FiT’s statement and this post, I feel like I should make a few observations…

This appears to leave out out the first part of the quote here:
“On October 1, 2024, we were contacted by a FIRST Tech Challenge coach with concerns there were two Qualifiers established in their Area to directly support the request of 14 teams, with over 85% of the teams from one school that also travels and participates in the FIRST Robotics Competition program.”

FiT never stated the event was intended for only 14 teams, but that the event was requested by those 14 teams. The accusation appears to be that these teams benefited disproportionately from these events, specifically in relation to the next part…

If I’m reading this correctly, this response appears to ignore the crux of the accusation here, they’re basically saying (or at least appear to be implying) that proceeds from the events were being funneled to a specific team (or teams from a specific school) over and above just the costs associated with running the event, and thus the teams were benefiting financially from hosting the events. IF it were true, I’m pretty sure this is not only against FiT’s rules, but specifically prohibited by FIRST HQ itself (as is basically any team-specific fundraising at official events).

Now that said, I would totally accept the explanation that this is just a miscommunication or something, and, for example, while the funds may have been handled by a team-affiliated organization, they were earmarked specifically for the event, and did not benefit the team(s) in question at all; while there may be some procedural issues here, it’s at least more understandable. Or you could have said that the claim itself was entirely baseless in the first place and you always planned and discussed working within FiT’s payment and funds distribution model.

I can totally sympathize with the problems FiT event organizers have discussed previously on CD with not getting reimbursements in a timely manner, especially if FiT is making requirements that are placing financial burdens on organizers upfront, but going outside the scope of allowed event payment/funding rules and effectively redirecting funds to an unapproved source, IF it were true, is probably not the best solution and borders on embezzlement.

Ultimately, FiT appears to work on a payment scheme where all registration fees paid by teams go to FiT and then FiT reimburses the events for expenses, as long as that was being (and planning to be followed) there’s no issue here (the reimbursement delays, while important, are fundamentally a separate problem).

Again, not taking a side either way as to what is or is not actually true, but I think it’s important to not misrepresent the opposing sides argument either.

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The problem with FiT’s statement is that it is categorically not true, and that is what I believe RoboChargers is responding to. In particular, the TLDR summary tells the true tale: “We [RoboChargers] were offered no money for hosting these events.”

There’s no “funneling” taking place (as you seem to presume) because all fees go directly to FIRST in Texas, and only the FiT Executive Director is authorized to release funds to other organizations (teams, event hosts, or otherwise).

In FTC in general, anyone that hosts events receives some sort of compensation for hosting the event. RoboChargers was going to host the event regardless of how much (or how little) money FiT would actually send them for it.

This is such an incorrect interpretation. Neither the PDC nor the local NTX volunteers nor especially the team-affiliated organization have any of the funds to “handle”. It’s all at FIRST in Texas, and has been from the beginning.

RoboChargers and everyone did exactly this, planning and working within FiT’s payment and funds distribution model. FiT leadership has hallucinated this whole “special rate / financial model” out of thin air into their statement, the “funneling” you presuppose as true never existed in reality.

In fact, it’s because the teams followed FiT’s payment and distribution model that they are asking for refunds from FiT if the qualifier does not take place. Because FiT is holding all of the money, and the teams (and local planners) have never had any control or say over the receipts for this event.

Again, FiT’s statement hallucinates a “special funding rate” scenario that has absolutely no basis in reality. And RoboChargers rightfully demands an apology from FiT for insinuating they were doing anything improper.

Indeed, your post directly proves the point that some people will read the FiT message and presume that RoboChargers is somehow improperly funneling the money in ways they should not be, when the truth is that they’ve never had anything to do with the revenue stream distribution at all. It’s this false implication, that you’re readily willing to posit “if true”, that demands an apology, because it is categorically not true.

Pm

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Something worth keeping in mind is that equity and equality are not the same thing. If the premise is that the community is underserved and the league model does not work for them, an equitable move is changing the model in a way that benefits this team to bring them closer to other teams. A qualifier is not an inherent advantage over a league.

In Philadelphia, we’re given a closed qualifier for our local FTC teams. Our teams get stomped at other qualifiers, but a closed qualifier gives a few teams each year a chance to go to the state championship, meet other teams, see other robots, etc. It gives all of our teams a chance to field a robot and play the same game as the other teams in attendance. Our event isn’t equal to the other events, but it tries to be equitable.

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I am not presuming there is funneling going on, I’m just pointing out that that appears to be the accusation that FiT is making, and that being the case, it’s important to address that accusation specifically, rather than the separate topic of reimbursement (or lack thereof) which this post appears to focus on.

In FiT perhaps, but this is not universal. At least some other regions expect/encourage events to fundraise to cover their own costs and will simply reimburse relevant budget shortfalls after the fact (the degree this happens can vary from almost no region-provided funding, to almost exclusive region-provided funding depending on the event), in addition to providing basic equipment (like the field).

Then it begs the question, to an outside observer at least, why would they even make such an accusation if it was totally implausible to begin with. A possible answer to that could certainly be something to the effect of “FiT leadership is just so deranged they would make a claim that an event was somehow planning to magically getting money directly from teams when they’re used to paying FiT directly for everything” but again, this was never brought up (EDIT: To be clear, I would never expect anyone to use that exact wording for a statement like this, it was more rhetorical)

If someone made this claim about an event I was running and I had that excuse, the first thing I would say is something like “teams pay FiT directly and our event has never operated or made plans to operate outside this structure, this claim is totally baseless and implausible”, or even how you worded it in the part below. It’s a slam-dunk rebuttal, but that’s not what we got here.

I left it open as a possibility in my initial reply simply because I know there ARE FIRST programs (usually lower-tier like FLL), in at least some regions, where, at least in the past, it wasn’t uncommon for teams to bring their event registration check with them to the event, so I could, hypothetically, see a situation (or in this case, the accusation of one) where an event was asking teams to make their checks out to the event, rather than the regional organization. That said, that now appears to not be the case in FiT since you clarified their event payment model.

Again, that’s fine, but state that explicitly, the wording of the open letter above is fairly vague on several of these points, and seems, at a glance at least to weasel around with what could be interpreted as excuses, rather than an explicit point-for-point direct denial of FiT’s claims. Perhaps anyone in FiT would understand the meaning behind its wording better than or some other outsider, but to those of us not in FiT here (and CD is an international forum after all), the lack of context is, if nothing else, confusing.

I’m not involved in FiT, so I have no direct evidence one way or the other how these things go down or what teams/organizers are experiencing. I’m simply working with the information presented in this thread, which, at least initially, appeared to not properly address the claims the other side appeared to be making.

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Believe me, we in Texas ask ourselves this sort of question all of the time about FiT leadership and their accusations. Because they’re totally implausible to begin with.

RoboChargers is a top-notch class act and has too much decorum and GP to ever say anything like “…is so deranged…” .

Speaking for myself, I’ve often seen the Executive Director make claims that are entirely made up on the spot. Indeed, the FiT statement is full of such misrepresentations and false claims, as these many CD posts about FIRST in Texas have illustrated.

Fair enough. Perhaps the Open Letter should have gone for a much more thorough explanation on this point. I believe that RoboChargers was trying to summarize to get to their other main points regarding equity and the specifics of their program, thus the “tl;dr”, but I can see how someone from outside might want a more point-by-point refutation.

Honestly, what all of us want is for the teams to get their qualifier back, and for FIRST in Texas to own up to the lies they are spreading about teams and volunteers.

Pm

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Also one of those >1,000 miles away readers…

We’ve got 2, 3… 4? Threads now that appear to raise serious questions about FIT’s actions and leadership over the last few months. Without diving into the veracity of the claims made across all these, one must start to wonder…

What I’d really like to know is, where is HQ in all this?

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Out of pure speculation, the lack of a better alternative might be a contributing factor. I haven’t been around as a Texas volunteer as long as @pmichaud has but, in order for an organization to be a replacement for FIT it would have to be able to handle managing all of the responsibilities and duties that are required for managing all three FIRST programs on such a large scale.

Texas is one of (if not only) state that has five operating regions within it. Managing something like that takes a lot of resources.

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My understanding is that HQ, as a policy, does not get involved in mudslinging or contradicting PDOs/PDPs. It’s a… complicated dynamic.

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My question is who is on the FiT BoD and what their opinions are on this. They would be the ones most directly responsible for replacing a rogue executive.

I fear HQs actual power in this scenario is limited. Since they don’t own or control FiT directly, I think that the only options available to them would cause a lot of disruption to teams in the area without another organization to act as a PDO.

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That part is easily answered.

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My heart is breaking for these kids. I know I’m a bit late to the party, but i just heard about all of this. Now that I know though, something has to be done. I taught my kids how important it is we lift up those around us, especially those who do not have the opportunities they do. I thought FIRST valued equity as well. It seems like this qualifier would’ve helped bridge a gap that needs to be filled. I am extremely disappointed in this Jason Arms fellow and the Board of Directors. Thank you for such an informative post. The links and statistics are very helpful.

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