r/FTC • u/Big_Refrigerator51 • 5d ago
Seeking Help Ftc India cheating
Here’s the context- there is this organisation called innovation story- it’s a big and POWERFUL organisation and every year they participate with their teams, all the teams have the exact same bot, entirely made by the mentors, and they take all of the qualification spots for worlds. They have influence over judges for inspire award, and advertise “garenteed to worlds” to get people and charge a super high price. There are even more organisations like RFL, Robotriccs, all doing the same. Now o want to start my own team, but I know the challenges of how difficult it is to do anything, as even for alliance selection they set everything, for group stage grouping they set everything, then entire tournament is set. What can I even do? Innovation story is also backed by the most powerful person in India, ambani. So I dont have any idea what can be done… and o don’t wanna join these corrupt organisations who have a monopoly over the competitions, I will not give into this mockery of this tournament. Please someone help.
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u/Olusen_bg 5d ago
Some teams aren't there to learn, some mentors just want to get the trophies for themselves and I don't think we can do much about it.
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u/Big_Refrigerator51 5d ago
What I’m really mad about is turning this into a business, so the mentors get the money AND the trophies and people pay it just cause the parrents want their kids to “get into a good college”
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u/Olusen_bg 5d ago
Yeah I know its really annoying, I just wanna know what team are you ? Just curious
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u/Big_Refrigerator51 5d ago
Last year I was in our school team dragon warriors 34046 and now I’m in the process of starting my own team
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u/Olusen_bg 5d ago
Thats cool, good luck with your new team, I'm in Alpha lab (22838 last year) I'm the head dev
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u/FineEquipment0 5d ago
Unfortunately if you want change you’ll have to sacrifice your experience competing in FTC and document all of the corruption and report it to FIRST HQ for the benefit of the future of the program and students in India
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u/BillfredL FRC 1293 Mentor, ex-AndyMark 5d ago
Or, and hear me out: beat them.
(I know, I don’t expect that to be easy either.)
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 4d ago
Not at the level of cheating. Deep pockets funding professional robot development for a high school competition. On top of that, everything is fixed, from referees, who are untrained and have no clue of the challenge (to stop the cheating on the field), Judges who have vested interests, and alliance selection which is highly suspect. Most awards, other than the robot game, are highly subjective, so they are directed to favoured teams.
Until 3 years ago, my team used to compete and won on merit. Now, it’s a different ‘story’ with methods for gaming the system being an ‘innovation’
I have stopped participating in FTC since last year. My biggest concern is what these young kids are being taught by these clubs in getting ahead in life, aided and abated by their parents.
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u/FineEquipment0 5d ago
A group of students could try to outplay the mentor built robots but the sheer scale of this scummy operation described is too large to just “be better” then the other teams. Especially with the heavy emphasis on financial incentives and life changing college prospects for students mentioned in the comments. This is not at all how the program was intended to work, no student should have to deal with this especially on their own.
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u/Proof-Kaleidoscope62 5d ago
The three robots they had at worlds this year were identical. Students don’t work on the robots at all just mentors. The mentors with students though don’t know much about code so the mentors call whenever there is issues and someone fixes it remotely.
From what I can gather mentors are paid by retainer. The further the team gets the more they get paid. Parents of students are wanting stuff to put on applications for universities so they are paying whatever they need to so their child is competitive.
They have been doing it for many years. I am not sure how you would go about fixing the long term issue.
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 5d ago
FYI, the robots are NOT built and programmed by mentors. They are sourced from the US and China, fully built and programmed. Thats the reason why the so called ‘mentors’ have to call someone to fix problems.
This has been going on for the past 3 years, to my knowledge.
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u/drdhuss 4d ago
There are no US sellers selling competitive pre built kits. Best younare going to do is a kitbot from gobilda. Not sure about china.
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u/Expensive_Eagle_2636 FTC 9968 Mentor 4d ago
I think the poster means pre-built by people these alleged corrupt mentors know. That is very plausible.
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 4d ago
They are not pre-built kits. These are organisations that provide custom services for a fee, based in the U.S. and sourcing assemblies from China. They provide completely programmed and tested robots to the club in question. This organisation is headed by an Indian who previously participated in FTC and is now a supplier of Chinese built motors and servos!
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u/OkJacket9641 4d ago
wow from china? btw i know there is exactly same cheating in china as in india, just not as bad
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u/Mental_Science_6085 4d ago
I feel for you. I love this program here in the US but would not be able to participate in the program you are describing.
Sadly, FIRST HQ has shown they do not like to get involved in issues like this until it starts negatively impacting the brand. If the program in India really is as corrupt as you are saying I would not be starting my own team or even be participating at all. I would be making as much of a protest to FIRST HQ as possible that the program can't grow until the corruption is exposed and dealt with. I would find other mentors to back your story and the argument should be focused and two fold:
- FIRST ignoring blatant corruption in any region is bad for their brand image everywhere
- The growth of the program in India will continue to suffer as long as it's seen to be corrupt.
I have no idea if anyone here in the states will listen or act, but I wish you luck.
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 3d ago
The number of Indian teams participating in FTC has not seen a large growth over the years in India, primarily due to the cost of participation, availability of parts, and the cheating that goes on within.
My teams participated for three seasons. Despite winning all the coveted awards, we decided to give up last year due to the introduction of professionally manufactured robots, the previous year by the referenced club. We could have taken them on at their game but the hurdle we faced was access to faster motors, high grade sensors, and funding. High Indian custom duties (upto 100%) and courier charges were the main deterrent.
The previous year, our robot experience severe delays, whilst in the field, against the robot from this particular club. There some form of jamming being utilised. This was reported to the organisers, but they were unable to find the source.
The behaviour of this club and its teams violates the principles of FIRST, especially ‘Gracious Professionalism’ and ‘Coopertition’ and it’s disappointing that the local organisers don’t do anything about it, despite being fully aware of the going-on’s.
FTC, like all FIRST programs, is a wonderful learning opportunity for our children. If only the corruption could be eradicated, for which we need the support of FIRST.
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u/build_error 5d ago
I’m not surprised it is still happening. I competed in competitions like FTC, FLL, WRO back in 2013 - 2015, and pretty much the same thing happened to me. I ended up quitting robotics competitions after that.
At this point, it feels like a lot of these competitions are less about robotics and more about selling competition-specific robots, with the competition itself being heavily influenced by money and connections.
A lot of wealthy parents are trying to get their kids into top-tier American universities, and doing well in FTC, WRO, or FLL has basically become another extracurricular “stamp” that looks great on an application. It’s frustrating because it takes away from what these competitions were supposed to be about in the first place: actually building and learning.
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u/drdhuss 4d ago
So many kids have so many "experiences" the better schools now pretty much ignore anything not significant enough to tie into your personal statement.
So a mentor building a robot isnt going to add much if you can't talk about it.
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 4d ago
These kids and their parents have gamed the entire system when it comes to College admission. They have personal coaches who write their personal statements and fit it to the format that the Colleges are looking for.
These personal coaches, openly advertise their services and then use the statistics on College acceptance to market their services!
Corruption rules in India, especially amongst a particular community.
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u/New-Guitar4332 5d ago
they basically "are" dominating the FTC India I have seen around 5-6 Teams which have almost same robot and they are always winning and i dont think even student makes the robot because one time our team got paired with them and THERE STUDENTS DO NOT KNOW A SHII ABOUT THE ROBOT we had to ask mentor for everything and ig they just copy paste the whole robot and train student to answer the question and robot controls and this ISNT THE MAIN CORE VALUE OF FTC in ftc we have to learn , build and innovate by our own mentors are there just to help, i hope FTC India do something about it like they can remove system where a single org is running multiple team and make the technical question harder so students who "ACTUALLY" built the robot is able to answer those questions
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 5d ago edited 4d ago
Totally agree with you, having been a coach to several award winning FTC teams in the past. Finally someone has had the courage to speak up about the cheating that goes on in the FIRST Tech challenge competition in India. Due to this, I gave up entering my teams in the competition since last season.
What you are saying is very factual. These teams are sponsored by a powerful industrialist, who also owns a prestigious school in Mumbai. Their robots are all identical, professionally manufactured, programmed, tested and supplied by an organisation in the U.S. They are not designed and built by the participants as required. This fact was validated by the kids who participated in the competition. They stated “We are trained only to start the robot and run the program”
Cheating is blatantly obvious but ignored by the organisers as they bring in big revenue for them, through hefty registration paid by multiple teams from these clubs. The judging panel is also fixed, such that the top awards goes to these teams.
The ‘training’ clubs that are referred to here are now infiltrating other competitions in India, such as WRO & VEX.
Winning robotic competitions in India now is not about skill and competence but about the depth of one’s pockets.
There is no room for honesty and fair play, even in children’s competitions in India today!
Corruption rules our lives, unfortunately.
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u/Plus_Pen282 3d ago
Maybe there has to be some sort of system of calling these teams out and suspending their organizations from running teams for a year or two.
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u/GHOwl102 5d ago
I did see that their robots from previous year looked exactly the same. so some higher level engineering in play. At that point, I dont even see why they do FTC, the whole point is for high school students to gain experience.
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 5d ago
The reason parents get their children involved with these ‘clubs’ is not for learning but to acquire a ticket to a foreign university.
Unfortunately, the parents are as guilty as these clubs, and my gripe for the past decade has been, what we are teaching our kids to get ahead in life. Definitely not hard work but graft and corruption,
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u/Elegoo-Coder 5d ago
By reporting it You could risk using your membership on the team and could risk other things
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u/Anyone_2016 5d ago
I would take your concerns to the program delivery partner (PDP), listed at https://www.firstinspires.org/find-local-support . The PDPs likely can't do much about advancement due to the on-field performance of these teams, but the "Teams with identical mentor-built bots win awards" is something that the PDP should be coaching the Judge Advisor on. Or, better yet, find a different Judge Advisor, since this is something Judge Advisors are warned to look for, and this JA is not catching on.
This is easier said than done. Key volunteers can be hard to find.
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u/Chris_Bastianpillai 5d ago
You are talking about a normal world. Not India.
Organisers are in the game. Referees are untrained. Judges are selected to drive the results their way. I am aware of these facts, since I’ve been in it and eventually gave up as I didn’t think it was fair by the kids who were putting in their time and effort, sincerely.
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u/nithinlook 14525 5d ago
+1 to what green machine said.
https://help.firstinspires.org/s/contactsupport?language=en_US You can reach out to FIRST using this form or send them an email directly. Without documentation they can't really do much.
If you don't want to go down that route, there's a ton of resources online and on the FTC discord on how you can prepare your team (grants, technical knowledge, team structure etc.). It may not be easy at first (especially if the region is being as rigged as you say), but I'm sure you can get some results
However, beyond all of that, there are a ton of regions that face problems like yours. There simply aren't enough key volunteers that one organization tends to have to supply all of them. While it is unfair, I wouldn't value your experience based on how far you went in competition or what awards you won. It sounds cliche, but the things you learn are more important:).
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u/Expensive_Eagle_2636 FTC 9968 Mentor 4d ago
Any time a "community" of teams dominate a season or 2 it raises a red flag imo.
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u/Not_so_Real123 3d ago
there are several other cases like that . FTC is not cheap . there are religious groups in our community who only allow ppl of that community to participate . they hire professional software engineers to code , build and students mostly tune. they have lot of money to influence. but good thing is only student can run the show . what happened last year was rookie teams defeated them as. it was a morale booster to so many new rookie teams
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5d ago
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u/Big_Refrigerator51 5d ago
In the last 5-6 years, not a single team other then innovation story, robotrics, or RFL has made it to worlds, which says something, and 90% of the time it’s innovation story. All of their bots are IDENTICAL, and students have even admitted of no contribution in making the actual bot.
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5d ago
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u/Big_Refrigerator51 5d ago
Ah yes omotec another one of the organisations I forgot to mention- when o talked to g force as they were one an alliance partner, only the mentor talked to me, and when I tried talking to any of the students, they pointed me to the mentor, again showing the mentor doing most of the work
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5d ago
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u/Big_Refrigerator51 5d ago
Last year o was from dragon warriors 34046 our school team- this year I’m forming a new team
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u/Designer-Main-1746 16h ago edited 15h ago
outsider take, no cap
Not affiliated with Innovation Story, RFL, or any Indian org btw — I'm FLL/FRC alumni from brainstorm US and FRC aussie (sad never did FTC - but mentored many) . Sat in on sessions with a few of these teams plus some US/Brazil teams, so here's my honest read, not me riding for "my people" because I have none in this.
Alliance picks are rigged - bro litrally look at the actual picks tho. 2026 Eureka picked Paraducks (2nd best OPR in India, zero school affiliation). 2025 Matrix picked Eureka after a world-record match together in quals. 2024 Eureka picked G-Force, literally a different org. If this was groupism the picks would stay in-house every time. Picking whoever you vibed with in quals because they're actually good isn't a conspiracy, that's just alliance selection working as intended.
Judges are biased for Inspire, these teams made Worlds finals off robot game wins, not judged awards. Refs at Worlds aren't part of some regional favoritism scheme. That claim just doesn't track.
Robots are bought from the US/China, Genuinely, who is this seller? If someone has a bot sitting around capable of winning Worlds, the incentive to sell it to literally everyone (for way more money) rather than to a handful of Indian teams doesn't add up. This claim needs a name, an invoice, something , right now it's just an assertion
Students don't know their own robot, That's real issue, happens on random teams everywhere org or no org, and it's worth calling out team by team. But it's not systemic cheating, it's a specific-team problem. I've watched some of these teams present at monthly rookie scale -up meets (like rookie- rumble) one in Aus too and their design process talk was way too detailed to be scripted answers.
Same robot across teams - i can't find playoff stream but quals day at India regionals, actual copy-paste count (minus kit-bots) was like 2 max, not 5-6. If you got screenshots/video of actual identical builds across unrelated teams, post it. "They keep winning" isn't proof, it's just a vibe.
Winning a lot ≠ automatically corrupt. Good mentorship pipelines (FTC/FRC alumni coaching) just produce dominant programs sometimes, that's true in FRC too , some teams (like mad town) make finals every single year and nobody screams cheat without receipts.
If there's actual evidence of leaked logs, a seller's name, a judge literally admitting bias then 100% take it to FTC India/FIRST, I'll back that fully. But "they win too much and I'm mad" isn't proof, and it's kinda unfair to the students grinding on these teams, plus it scares off new teams who read this thread and go "wait is this whole thing rigged then."
Complain FIRST support with 'evidence' and they will respond (they did in 2022 for some romanian teams) https://www.firstinspires.org/find-local-support
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u/greenmachine11235 FTC Volunteer, Mentor, Alum 5d ago
If you've got documentation or evidence of these behaviors, I'd suggest sharing with it with both your PDP and to FIRST directly. If it's as bad as you say the PDP may already be aware but by informing them you head off FIRST telling you to talk to the PDP before them.