Dear BEST family,
Over the last few days, we have received communications from a number of teams, mentors, students, HDs and others with concerns about the use of the Q&A. There are three main concerns involved.
- Abuse of the Q&A by BEST participants. It is completely inappropriate to use this forum to post questions such as (these are real): “When finished, may we put peanut butter on our robot?” (Q260); “Can the rope be replaced by an escalader? Our robot is obese and does not like to climb ropes, and would much prefer an escalader to reach space” (Q256); “I was wondering that if for some crazy reason our robot falls and catches fire, and then by the chain of events the game field catches fire, then the stadium catches fire. Would we be disqualified?”(Q250). These are completely unacceptable. Please remember that the Q&A staff are volunteers from the game committee. They do not have time to deal with this silliness. Your peers are also trying to gain information and you are causing us all to have to sift through the information for real questions.
- Failure to follow Q&A Protocol. The correct steps for use of the Q&A are: First, read the rules and discuss them as a team to see if other team members already know the answer; Second, see if your question already exists and has been answered; Third, ask your hub director; Fourth, thoughtfully post a question. Again, the staff of the Q&A are a final resource – they are volunteers who are here to help, not be treated as a clearinghouse for questions. Can you imagine what they go through? If you have not received the rules sets, drawing sets, and/or any other best resources from your Hub Director, please feel free to get them from the websites (use mine if you need: www.msbest.msstate.edu). (Northeast Alabama BEST Note: This is all in your team notebook and flash drive. Please contact Nicole Carroll if you have difficulty finding anything.)
- Offensive answers. On behalf of BRI, I offer my apologies to anyone who was accidentally offended by any of the answers. There was never any intent by the game committee to hurt any feelings. I am sure we can all relate to the frustration of answering the same questions over and over and having to sift through ridiculous questions like those in #1 and the Q&A team has been trying to lighten the mood. We all need to be respectful towards others and we don’t all have the same sense of humor, so we should be patient with each other.
In Cheerful Service,
Eric Heiselt
President, BEST Robotics Board of Directors
