Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber
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Deliberations [2]
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I'll work on seeing if I can get a more detailed walk through of the process added to the manual for next year[3]. I don't want the process or what Judges are looking for to be a mystery.
Here's another fun piece of info for you, that deliberations stage is the single hardest part of judging. Know why? Because there's only a handful of awards and number of teams >>> num of awards. Spoiler - we want to give every team an award. Heck [4] worked with a judge who had only heard stories of how awesome FIRST was from Jess [5], she came in and judged at Dartmouth. Well, guess what? her company NOW sponsors a team. Just from talking to students.
Look, I wanna make judging as transparent as possible. I want teams to feel they understand what went into an award decision. But I've been on the other side of someone leaking info from a Judge room. I argued for team B to win over team A. Team A found out... only they only heard "he was arguing against giving you the award". Long story short - it was a crappy experience, I stopped volunteering for a while, nearly quit FIRST it was so crappy. It HAS to be a protected space so that judges can argue without fear of repercussions. I'm not trying to keep the process a secret, only the details.
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[2] This is the part I refer to as "chair throwing time"
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I totally understand your concern about the need for the Judging Room to stay private and that there should be no leaks. The fact of the matter is that there was a leak and the content of the leak appears to indicate there are flaws in the judging process. Considering the time, effort and resources that teams commit to this competition, it is unacceptable to be forgotten, just like it would be unacceptable for your professor to tell you that you cannot get a grade because he lost your exam papers.
Once the judging process appears to be unfair, the awards associated with that process cease to be incentives. That undermines the objectives of an otherwise great program and the efforts of people in this community such as the OP, you and I. Rightly or wrongly, there have been whole teams that have left FLL in our area because of awards that were not given out in a rational and transparent way.
Having worked as an FLL Judge quite a few times, I know what you mean about throwing chairs. Sometimes, the Judges get about as passionate advocating for the teams they saw as the teams themselves
(I think this is a good thing)
It would be greatly appreciated if you can help improve the manuals and other materials used to train the Judges. Not being a mystery to the competitors would also mean it would be easier for the Judges to be consistent from one event to another and within an event.