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Judges need to have a familiarity to the game and need to be able to understand a team's manner of play. But, judges don't need to know the details of the rules.
Referees and inspectors need to know the rules, and from what I can tell, most do... especially the head referees and the head inspectors. This has improved over the recent years. Usually, the disagreements that we see are in two areas:
1. people interpret some rules differently
2. referee's judgements on the field are different than observers, due to the simple fact that referees cannot read the minds of robot drivers and understand the intent of some moves.
During the first week of regionals, #1 came in to play. Once FIRST had a few regionals under their belt, they communicated these interpretations between regional coordinators and referees and agreed how to make rulings.
#2 is more tricky... this was seen in Houston as some teams were called for DQ with regards to tipping and some not. Referees do their best, and make tough calls sometimes. They don't have the luxury of hindsight and replay. Sometimes they make the wrong call that decides a championship, sometimes they make the right call. That is the way of the world. If this is not easily understood or accepted, then I suggest doing something less challenging or exciting.
I'll never forget a time when I was a ref for the first year of IRI. I made a tough call against team 68, Truck Town. I go over to their alliance station to explain the call... and their students are complaining. Tom Nader, their coach, said to his students "what was the referee's call?" The students just looked at me and shook my hand. I could tell that they did not agree, but they simply accepted my call. This simple act of GP has stuck with me ever since. This showed class by Tom and the students. I wish that more teams had 68's class.
Andy B.
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