What is Fair Play?

Following the lead of Mark Edelman – Global Chief Referee – FIRST Tech Challenge in British Columbia a would like to offer an extra challenge to our teams this year.

With the British Columbia FIRST Tech Challenge season running Remote Events, we will be relying heavily on the teams to faithfully represent their participation by honestly and accurately scoring their own matches.

FIRST has received questions since the announcement of the Remote Event model that suggest some teams may take the opportunity to be less than honest with their match reporting. We want to provide encouragement (and maybe a bit of extra incentive) to “do the right thing” and more importantly, recognize all our teams who are doing the right thing.

2020 / 2021 British Columbia FIRST Tech Challenge Fair Play Participants

3491 FIX IT
16206 Lightning Bots
16031 PARABELLUM
16140 TechnoDynamics

Requirements for Fair Play

  1. Honesty
    • Honesty and integrity are some of the hallmarks of FIRST teams. One of Mark Edelman’s favorite definitions of integrity is
      “Integrity is what you do when no one is looking”.
    • Hold yourself and your team to high standards of honesty and integrity.
  2. Transparency
    • Be open and transparent about what your team does and accomplishes this season. Show the world that you have nothing to hide and that you are proud of your accomplishments!
    • Share with other teams what you are doing – what you’ve struggled with, what you’ve succeeded with. This sharing can be verbally, with pictures or with videos. Some suggestions are given below.
  3. As a team, take the FAIR Play for FTC pledge
    • As a FIRST Tech Challenge Team, we hold to the FIRST Core Values
    • We believe that the spirit of Gracious Professionalism guides us to behave honestly and with integrity as we participate in FIRST
    • We recognize that the learning we accomplish is the primary reward for our participation in FIRST Tech Challenge
    • All Remote Event Matches we participate in will be scored honestly and openly, as if we were participating in a Traditional Event
    • We will hold ourselves and each member of our team accountable
    • We will encourage other teams to be similarly committed to the values of FIRST
    • We will be a positive role model for what it means to be a FIRST team!

Your Reward for Participating

If your team is willing to do all three of the above, please have one of the two primary coaches fill out this Google Form attesting to your team’s participation and agreement with this Fair Play For FTC effort, FIRST in British Columbia will:

  • list your team on this page in a “Fair Play Teams” listing on the firstroboticsbc.org website with a link to your videos
  • email your team a “Fair Play for FTC” digital badge that can be added to your team’s website and other digital media or printed and put on your robot.

Suggestions for Transparency Sharing

Post a write up on BC FIRST Tech Challenge Discord or on your own website.

Post pictures and comments about a robot mechanism or your whole robot on Discord, Youtube, or your own website.

Post a tagged walk-around video of your robot. Describe it and its functionality. Think of it as a self-inspection (could even follow the inspection checklists)

Post a tagged video for one or more scored matches your team scores as part of a Remote Event you participate in this season. As a tip, for reasons of youth safety, avoid including faces and/or names in the videos.

Create a playlist or channel for the videos and share widely!

Encourage the teams in your communities to do the same kind of sharing!

Video Tips

Practice recording matches

Practice uploading to your sharing service

View the videos after uploading – make sure the quality is reasonable

Pick a viewpoint/angle that closely matches a human viewpoint

Start the recording BEFORE the randomization for the match

If possible, have the camera include date/time information in the video

Simple Video Naming Scheme –follow format:

  • FTC-0245-L1-M1 (team 245, league #1, match #1)
  • FTC-0245-L4-M2 (team 245, league #4, match #2)
  • FTC-0245-BC-M3 (team 245, BC Championships, match #3)
  • FTC-0245-Robot (team 245, robot “walk-through/inspection”)

Post to searchable video service

  • Create a playlist
  • Share your videos using this Google form and it may be highlighted during an event closing ceremony or in FIRST in British Columbia social media.