If you plan to sign the petition, please leave a comment with your team number or your relationship to the program – since this is an online petition that could receive external signatures, I want it to be clear to FIRST that the signees here are mentors and students of FRC. Also I am NOT RAISING MONEY and any "donations" the site asks for are pocketed by change.org

TLDR
All the changes to the alliance selection process this year area great, except the part about the third representative being an adult. Students should represent their own teams on the field and interact as peers during the alliance selection process. I consider this part of the competition, and letting adults participate is akin to letting them drive the robots.

============= Want to get involved? =============
Here's a flier that links to this page - I'd love for this to be distributed to as many teams in the pits and the stands as possible! If you do this, please be respectful - if teams aren't interested, move on.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rYZ4jM9aqQoIP5UAjQL-TMeEeLj2XHEN/view?usp=sharing

============= Long version =============

I am a former student competitor (rookie year 2009) and current mentor of 9 years with the FIRST Robotics Competition. I love FIRST, and want the amazing accomplishments of the students in the program to inspire the world to embrace science and technology. I also want the students currently participating in the program to receive the best possible experience and as many learning opportunities as can be crammed into the few months of build season and competition. FIRST isn’t about building robots, and it’s not about the competition, it’s about building up the students.

The alliance selection process is one of my favorite parts about an FRC event, where students get to venture out on the field and work together to collaborate and define their path into the elimination rounds. For many teams, scouting and optimizing this selection process is an art all to its own, but my favorite thing about it is the ceremony of it all. You've got these students going out there to champion their teams, to represent their peers, and in many cases, have very important discussions with someone they've never met before on a field in front of a crowd. It can be stressful, but it's awesome. I got to represent my team during alliance selection a few times during high school and it was an amazing experience.

This year, the rules regarding alliance selection have changed, and I think largely for the better. Apparently in response to an incident I have only been told about from championships last year, where a prolonged on-field disagreement got very toxic. First off, they implemented a timer so alliance captains have to choose the next team quickly. I love this change - it completely prevents any disagreement from dragging on, and in the case of teams that can't decide, it adds a level of randomness back into the mix, which I really appreciate. They also clarified that the higher seeded team has final call, again preventing an ongoing disagreement, and they allowed additional students on the field as a delegation rather than lone representatives. Having been down there, I can attest that it leaves an impact on the psyche to stand alone on the field, but it would be much more comfortable with a friend there with you - I like teams having the option to send a delegation. This also allows teams with a designated head of scouting to go on the field with notes and spreadsheets and whatnot and focus on the strategy while the team captain makes the announcements, which is awesome. This sort of teamwork under pressure is one of the things that FIRST is perfect for teaching.

These three rule changes are 100% sufficient to prevent the sort of issues FIRST wants to prevent, but unfortunately there was one more change to the alliance selection process: the third team representative is allowed to be an adult mentor.

I think this is an indefensible change to one of the most special moments FRC has to offer, and I don’t think those who made the change truly understand the repercussions. Students on different teams need to have the chance to stand tall and interact with each other on the field as peers. As soon as you throw an adult into the mix, this shatters. I've seen it in meetings many times - the exact same words can come from a mentor's mouth, or a student's mouth, and the rest of the team will react entirely differently. It's impossible for a mentor to not throw off the dynamic in this situation. Even if the adult representative just stands there and doesn't say anything, the unspoken reason for them being present is that they don't trust the students not to fail in some way or another. If I went out on the field with our student leaders, I’d feel like I was insulting them. The arguably bigger problem is that other teams can't escape it - we're going to be seeing overcompetitive mentors arguing with high school students they’ve never met, from other teams, and that's not a situation that should be possible. This selection process is part of the game - in my mind letting adults participate in alliance selection is like letting them drive the robots.

One of the mentors I spoke to at an event last weekend who ended up going out on the field with the students claimed his team had "asked for the support" once mentors on the field became an option. Similarly, FIRST’s official statement references a relatively amorphous “additional ways for coaching and mentorship to happen”. I don’t believe that standing next to your students and waiting for them to make a mistake - whatever you deem to be a mistake - is “support”. Teaching them what they need to know to be confident, telling them "good luck out there, you don't need me; you'll do great", and then demonstrating your trust by letting them stand by themselves; that's support. No matter what the students do out there, they're learning, and that's the entire point. The safety net for the students is that it’s a game – the outcome of the competition doesn’t matter one bit.

I visited every pit at the competition I attended last weekend to talk to teams about this issue, and many people in FIRST didn’t even know this rule was changing. Far and away the best reaction I’ve heard came from one team's captain, when she was informed that mentors could be on the field this year during alliance selection, thought about it for a minute, and responded "Bruh, you're grown." so I'm asking the mentors of FIRST to act like grown ups, to put the students in front of the competition, and to reject this rule change.

Thank you!