Ok, many teams are having trouble finding enough balls and apparently the stores are running out. So, that made me think of a scenario.
You go into a Walmart to buy some more orbit balls, but there aren’t any. On your way out, you see a kid with his/her parents carrying one. It is apparent that there is intent to purchase. What do you do? Do you offer to pay the parents off? Do you say ‘oh well’ and forget about it? Do you try to take it?(I hope not) Just a scenario that I could see arising for someone somewhere with the number of teams and the number of balls.
It’s just a scenario based question. Honestly, anything other then stealing the ball from the kid seems reasonably GP to me. I just want to see what others would do in such a situation.
Personally, if the ball was worth $30 bucks to me, I would offer the parents $20 for the ball and buy it. If it wasn’t worth that much, and its not, I would just let it slide. Not sure this is the most GP move. It could be debated as going either way. Ok, now I’ve stated my stance, now what would you do?
Better question…
You hit your local Walmart and find 20 brand new Orbit Balls! On your way out you run into someone from another team nearby who is also looking for Orbit Balls… What do you do?
What if there are only 15 Orbit Balls? Only 10? 5? 3?
What if you’re in the Walmart in their town?
What if you’re in a neutral town Walmart?
Fun ethical debates. We were talking these scenarios over during our “find more Orbit Balls” search.
For the kid scenario: I’d ask the parents where they found the ball and if they saw any more. If they are nice enough to answer those questions I’d add in a “boy I wish there were more because my robotics team could sure use them” If they ask “Why?” I’d tell them and introduce the kid to FIRST at the same time. Then I’d offer to make the kid a ball in his / her favorite colors in exchange for the real ball. But I wouldn’t push too hard, that would just be creepy. :rolleyes:
Lots of balls in a store… at this point if I was lucky enough to still find balls, and my team needed them (which we don’t 'cause we are already making them by the trailerful) I’d buy them all up and then send an e-mail to all the local teams to tell them we found some more balls and see if they wanted some of them. Then we would share!
If I ran into another team in the store, I’d share on the spot! Even if I only found three, I’d definitely give up one of them!