Always hard to tell whether the sarcasm tag is missing. But the entirety of startup culture is "what if we didn't follow these rules that don't make sense". Sometimes you get a failure, sometimes you get spectacular success, and sometimes it dumps a problem on someone else.
But mindless rule-following, however inevitable it is, is also organizational poison. That's how you get situations where you're "doing everything right" but everyone - shareholders, staff, customers - ends up unhappy.
I’m just going to eat the down votes because I know teachers in real life. And they have plenty of things to do besides running a competition. As a group they don’t deserve the flak.
You can’t be so reductive.
This is a competition. This is not a startup. Competitions have rules. There is no evidence that the rules were withheld from these students. There is no evidence that the other kids were judged by different standards. There are probably other kids that read things carefully thought “that’s bullshit” and got on with it because they wanted to win. They could have read the requirements and challenged the rules before things got started in a public forum in an effort to get it changed because it was a bad rule.
Are people here really arguing that they should be given an advantage over the other kids in a competition, because these kids kicked up a fuss? Even Djokovic didn’t get a free pass. And the Norwegian volley ball team were prepared to pay fines and potential disqualification.
Yes, but blind application of rules without context isn't the way. Even courts have to take the original intent behind laws into account.
> I know teachers in real life. And they have plenty of things to do besides running a competition
How does that prevent them from knowing what Github is, as the "person in charge of tech education" at that school? Nobody demands they keep up with every trend but someone able to disqualify teams in a web design competition should probably know one of the 5 most visited development websites in the world.
These teachers crushed some students. They 100% deserve the flak.
If they teach math and can't add or teach english and can't read then they deserve the flak. If a teacher doesn't know the difference between hosting a site and using a template they shouldn't be teaching Computer courses.
Showing kids that the rules are enforced by ignorant people is an excellent lesson. Squashing hope early is a great way to educate the young.
But mindless rule-following, however inevitable it is, is also organizational poison. That's how you get situations where you're "doing everything right" but everyone - shareholders, staff, customers - ends up unhappy.