Quote:
Originally Posted by Karthik
Do you have an official source on this? I've never seen it in any documentation. I have no idea it's true or not, but if it is, it would seem strange to me that the judges wouldn't be allowed to share the information they learned during the presentation.
|
Yes and no. I've talked to several judges and also an ex head judge. You will not find official documentation on this, because the FRC judge training information is only available to judges. But judges will tell you that the Chairman's judges are not supposed to talk to other judges. Chairman's judges are not supposed to share information. Even if they were, they rarely have enough time at an event anyway, especially given the number of teams submitting at a given event increasing with the rule change last year allowing presenting at multiple events. In fact, the only information RCA judges are allowed to share with other judges is "hey, this team is the team we selected for RCA," and the other judges may use that information to decide on other awards (i.e. if a team wins RCA, but the EI judges selected them for EI, the EI judges will select another team instead). But that's the extent of the information that is shared.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysterE
I believe this may also be a regional to regional thing. I know at the Bayou Regional this is true - coming from the Head Judge himself. The RCA judges do not go through the pits at all and make all decisions based on what they learn in the Interview Room and in the Essay and Executive Summary.
But I've also been to regionals where our presenters have seen RCA judges walking around the pits.
|
Yes, RCA judges CAN walk around the pits and talk to teams. However, they are not supposed to get information from other judges. They are only allowed to gather information that they collect themselves. So you will sometimes see RCA judges walking around the pits if they have their selection narrowed down to a couple teams, to get some more information. However, they cannot solicit information from other judges, and likewise Chairmans judges cannot give information to other judges. In other words, everything that goes into the selection of RCA comes only from the information the RCA judges themselves collect from the team in the submission, presentation, pit interviews, and their own research (i.e. looking at your website, etc).
My point was that NOTHING you say in the Chairman's room is given to other judges at the event, including those judging for EI, and vice versa. They don't even have access to your chairmans submission (essay and questions) unless you give it to them in a handout (which we sometimes do).
This further proves that the two awards are in fact separate from each other. In fact, before the rule change allowing submitting for RCA at multiple events, we usually won EI at events where we did NOT submit for Chairman's.