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Unread 16-03-2007, 09:59
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Re: YMTC: Redabot Scores 30 Bonus Points?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Holley
Why must everything be fact? I thought this was a place where one could state their opinion.
Where ever possible, arguments should be supported by facts, under the basic provisions of the YMTC threads. As Lucien notes "please reference specific rules when applicable." This is important because the basic premise of YMTC is that you are the referee for the event. You are being asked to make an official ruling. Your job is to enforce the rules that exist. As such, all your rulings need to be supported by specific FRC rules and appropriate facts. As a referee, it is not your job to write new rules or inject your opinion on the propriety of the rules into the deliberation process for a specific call.

The elegance of the whole YMTC challenge is that it forces you to put yourself in the place of "the other guy" and try to understand how they view the world from their position. In this case, you have to try to understand the view of a game situation from the reference point of the referee. How you look at the game as a team member or a game player doesn't matter in this discussion. The only thing that does matter is how well you can understand the role of the referee, the job they have to do, and the type of decisions that they must make.

Why is this important? Because the ability to truly understand how "the other guy" thinks, and how they see the world from their point of view is a massively important skill. I have the utmost respect for the job the referees have to do, and the difficulty of their position. Exercises like this help us understand even better just how tough their job is. In the rare cases where we do have a serious objection to a decision that a referee may make, being able to understand their view of the situation can very frequently help to address the concern. At the very least, it makes us better prepared to consider the opposing side of an argument, understand the counter-points, and have appropriate considerations ready.

Learn to do that, and make it a regular skill that is consistently applied when trying to understand why a referee has made a particular call. And when you can do that, you will suddenly find that that skill is transferable to many, many other situations. That same skill is incredibly important when you are dealing with college professors, professional compatriots, business competitors, other organizations, other companies, and other countries. There is an unfortunately small percentage of people can really do this well. But those that can see the world from the other person's point of view are capable of making huge impacts on the world.

As has been said so many times before, FIRST is not just about the robots. In fact, the robot have almost nothing to do with it. The lessons, practices and skills to be learned in FIRST are so much larger than just learning how to put a few pieces of metal together and making them moved (although that is a wonderfully cool side benefit ). YMTC has very little to do with just seeing who knows the rulebook better than the other guy. Just like the rest of FIRST, it is so much deeper than that…

Quote:
Originally Posted by t. Hoffman
My brain hurts. "Interpret"....."Careful consideration".......these words imply the need to spend more than a few moments assembling the pieces of some nebulous puzzle. Rules shouldn't have to be interpreted - their intent should be obvious. The fact you believe we must "carefully consider" the meaning inherently suggests a problem with the rule in question. Why can't a rule be cut and dry?
Sorry, Travis, you don't get off that easy. I never said the rule required a lot of thought to understand. Nor did I say you had to think a lot to understand the meaning of the rule. What I did say was that if you considered the situation carefully, you would understand why the rule has to be the way it is. The rule is easy to understand. What requires some thought is trying to understand why the rule is necessary in the form it has. Read the discussion above, and try the same exercise. You are a smart guy, and you don't need to have the answer spoon-fed to you. Put yourself in the place of the GDC, and think about the information that was available at the time the rules were written (and more importantly, what was not available). Think about the variability of all the factors that are affected by the rule. Think about the position of the referee when calling the rule. Like I said, you are smart and you will get it. And when you do, that enlightenment may lead to understanding of why other rules are the way they are.

-dave
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