Quote:
Originally Posted by tplanders
Having judged other FIRST events, if the guidelines ask for a presentation and the team comes in a shows a video, that demonstrates a lot of hard work and preparation, but it is not a presentation.
My thought is that the judges want to hear and see a presentation and interact with students, not watch a video. We have done a video, but won't use it for the presentation.
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You're rationalizing based on the faulty premise that a presentation excludes a video.
Since the manual can't really be more clear that using the chairman's award video is permissible, apparently some of the judges weren't paying attention to the portion that concerns the awards they were judging. That's very problematic.
As for a resolution, it's complicated. It's likely possible from a logistical point of view to have them reprise their presentation at GTR West. But teams choose where they make their submissions strategically, and knowing that 610 (a past regional chairman's award winner) was not coming to that event may have encouraged others to submit there instead. Similarly, 610 surely employed strategic thinking when submitting at Waterloo instead of GSR (and possibly even considered this a factor in their selection of regionals).
A possible solution would be for FIRST to allow 610 to submit at GTR West, then open a second non-award-winning spot to qualify for the Championship chairman's award if 610 finishes first or second. That isn't quite fair to all the other teams who qualified elsewhere—but I think a case could be made that the harm was minimal, since all will be freshly re-evaluated at the Championship.
Letting them directly qualify for the Championship chairman's award isn't a terrible idea if the problem is confined to 610 (since they're already going)—at worst, the judges have to consider one terrible presentation that would have been weeded out by the regional process. But if other teams are similarly affected, it might not be feasible to work them all into the judging schedule. As before, since the qualifying teams are all being freshly evaluated, most of the harm is mitigated.
Another possible resolution would be for FIRST to do nothing for 610—because no resolution is satisfactory—but own the error and establish procedures to avoid it and/or establish an equitable response for the future.
No matter the outcome, it's FIRST's responsibility to make a statement explaining their decision, and to do so before GTR West (if the resolution would be implemented there), or otherwise, to do so before the Championship. It is insufficient for that statement to be made only in private to the affected teams. The Q&A is a suitably public forum, so hopefully FIRST makes a satisfactory response there.