After competeing for 3 years, i have only been in one situation where i totally disagreed with the referee's actions (it happened this year at nationals, and was a result of severe miscommunication regarding driver badges). as a whole, i think the ref's have done a good job...its pretty obvious from the way they go to tally scores that they know the rules pretty well...and tough calls happen...i know i wouldn't really like to be the one who makes the decision if the robot is on or off the ramp which would decide the match.

I didn't read any of the posts in this topic before writing this so here's my view.

In response to the question, 'Should FIRST Judges/Refs Read the Rules?', I will give two responses.

[1]
The judges should not be required to read the rules. They come upon the 2nd day of the competition when inspection should be done and all technical issues are cleared up. The judges' main purpose then is to act as a source of unbiased judgement on the uniqueness of the robot or team in some way. It doesn't require knowing technical game rules to do this.

[2]
The referees should be required to read the rules and perhaps to take a test beforehand on awkward situations to determine whether they should be allowed to judge the outcome of a match. Since we are not allowed to argue with a judge's call (however bad it may be), FIRST then should take all necessary steps to find competent (as in knowing the game rules) people to referee so that teams do not have to be silently mad at what ruling may have hurt them/given an advantage to the opponent.

Just a brief aside here:
Why do people do this? Honestly? I don't understand it...

What this says to me is: "I don't want to take the time to hear what your opinions are, but I think you should listen to my opinion."

Listening vs. Waiting to Speak...
Which will get you more respect in life?

There is a reason that you are not allowed to argue with the referees call: Referee calls are final; if you could argue, then that is all people would do all day when talking to the referees.

To many people it seems their definition of a bad call is one that goes against their team. I wonder if they really know the rules as well as they think, or are just mad about getting DQd and would disagree regardless of how fair the ruling was?

I did scorekeeping at SVR. One match I inputed the 2 robots for blue instead of red when taking the score from the paper to the computer. We caught it within 30 seconds, but it was already on the big screen. However, it was corrected within a minute, before one of mentors came over to double check the score.

Life.
Nothing is perfect.
Mistakes happen. I make them. You make them. We all make them.

However, when you have refs asking you Thursday morning at 8:30 about how a robot needs to be posistioned to get 25 points....

Some refs do need to be better prepared.
Suggestion: FIRST-a-Holics from diffrent states/no former local team(s).

Wetzel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hmm...I seem to be a FIRST-a-Holic...:rolleyes:

It's because I said I didn't read it before I wrote the post so as not to be biased.

Guessed WHAT I DID AFTER? I READ THEM!
(I love caps lock on the internet. Am I really shouting?)

The whole point of doing that to a question is so that I can say what I think without having read posts which I can specifically target. If by chance opinions clash, it's not my picking on someone.

Yeah, I guess that Wetzel is right. Some people are motivated enough to prepare for it and some think that it's a simple game that will be quick to pick up on.

This is what FIRST is doing. They've been bringing "team" people into the referee side for the past 2 years.

We'll probably see even more of this next year, as FIRST expands to more regionals.

Have we lost focus on the real meaning of FIRST? It's not the competition or the 'incompetent judges/refs'. While many Judges don't know the game (i.e I asked a ref at Annapolis who was winning since I couldn't see, and he said he didn't know how the game was scored) many do. I know. Refs NEED to know the rules well. They study for this. I find that the constant bashing needs to stop here. What if I started a new thread on every mistake you make?