Scioly.org

Just out of curiosity, what exactly is the use of outside help during set-up? I've built three missions, and my team knows the device better than anyone who might unfairly give us a tip. There's really not a whole lot you can do to a broken device during those thirty minutes.

Primate wrote:Just out of curiosity, what exactly is the use of outside help during set-up? I've built three missions, and my team knows the device better than anyone who might unfairly give us a tip. There's really not a whole lot you can do to a broken device during those thirty minutes.

The problem arises when nobody on your team built the device.

Yup, cat's out of the bag. My policies are to HELPFULLY level the travel/weather/many coaches playing field, and put the dad-builts at a disadvantage. remember, I'm also a salesman for the events I run.

Several years ago I refused to let a coach change a dead battery (kids had 7 of them) for the kids. She was really ticked. I kept asking her why the kids couldn't identify the battery (hint-- follow the wires) and why she needed to do it for them, and she kept dodging the question. Simply put, separation of Mission Team and Adults.

Fast forward to four months later, when the coach posted a complaint on the Yahoo Coaches site, identifying me by "An event supervisor in Indiana who also works Nationals" (like THAT follows site rules of anonyminity) and complaining how unfair I was, etc. I didn't reply, because I knew I didn't have to-- less than a week later, someone posted a short one-liner, "You were lucky your kids weren't disqualified" and that was the end of the issue. I didn't DQ them because 1) I was a guest, 2) DQ fights can take all day and 3) the dead circuit cost them over 250 points.

It seems that there is too much parent involvement in MP. There's healthy parental help and unhealthy parent help.

I totally agree. I have seen this in some other building events, where the parents sit with the kid and practically build it for them. Gets really annoying, since I build everything on my own, and others get engineers to actually build it for them! I do like that in Helicopters, competitors cannot get outside assistance what so ever.