Quote:
Originally Posted by mutantlog
I hope I'm not speaking inappropriately by posting as a referee this past weekend, but while I've lurked around here in my past 9 years volunteering as a ref, this is the first time I've bothered registering to post. Of course my opinions are my own and not representative of anyone at my regional or my fellow referees, etc.
Without turning this into a laundry list of issues, I was surprised at the basic issues of referee location on this year's field. With regards to seeing whether the pedestal lit up, I found that standing by the tablet in front of the gates made it very challenging to see due to the angle and the number of drivers and coaches in between my position and the pedestal. I could step back and turn towards the pedestal, but that took me away from the scoring tablet and the action on the field.
If anyone knows of a proper channel to provide feedback to FIRST and the GDC as a referee, I'd be interested to hear it. I feel like a bit of an odd duck as my experience with FRC is limited to refereeing once a year and watching the occasional live stream on other weeks, and I won't be at St. Louis so I can't find someone there. For what it's worth, every prior year I finish the weekend with the intent to sign up in VIMS as soon as I remember it's open. This year is the first year where I'm more hesitant, and I expect that I'll read the 2015 game rules in detail before I agree to sign up.
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I really appreciate your insight, and the insight of other referees. From what I can gather, it's never easy to be a referee, and this year is even worse. As a student who will be graduating, I look forward to volunteering - HOWEVER, games like this make me hesitant to ever volunteer for refereeing.
I probably should have clarified in my original post - we did take it to the question box, and the referees said none of them even noticed. Your insight does provide more inspiration as to why some balls take 10-30 seconds to get onto the field, though. I really feel for all of you.
As a student whose life has been changed directly by this organization (most of the life-changing events happening in competition), it truly saddens me that years like this discourage the volunteers that make the competitions happen.
FIRST was ambitious with this game, and it was a wonderful concept. However, it saddens me that the poor execution and detail in the rules has prevented this game from reaching its potential - and is discouraging wonderful volunteers like you.
In other words, this could be a whole lot of
but is really a whole lot of
