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Posted by Travis Hoffman at 04/12/2001 9:34 AM EST


Engineer on team #48, Delphi E.L.I.T.E., from Warren G. Harding High School and Delphi Automotive Systems .


In Reply to: I have to disagree..
Posted by colleen - T190 on 04/11/2001 6:40 PM EST:



: I know that judges met with EVERY team as they came
: off from Einstein their first match.. No one was
:allowed without stopping a speaking to the judges..

Well, our student copilot never mentioned anything of this. And he is the one that always talks with the judges.


: we had a good amount of time with them and both the
:high school and college students that were part of
:the stage crew could speak on the robot and our
:experiences..

: And Friday afternoon judges stopped by our pits and said "You have 2 and 1/2 minutes.. tell us what your robot does"...

That's wonderful. Too bad nothing of the sort occurred with our team.



: Let's give these people some credit.. because they didn't come to your pit, doesn't mean they didn't notice you.. they did speak to every time.. and I thought it was excellent that FIRST worked it out to ENSURE that all teams spoke with judges.. talk to your drivers and coaches and see what they said to the judges..

You know, it seems rather hokey to me that an organization thinks it can make a fair assessment of a team's robot and related equipment without ever actually going to the pit to LOOK at the robot.



: With 340, you really can't expect all those teams to get a 20minute conversation w/ every judge..

I never expected that. 3 minutes would have been nice, however. Alas....


I think this year was better than ever since FIRST made sure all teams were spoken to.. and even if the judges hadn't stopped by our pit Friday.. I wouldn't have felt overlooked.. we didn't win an award, but on that national scale.. it can only hope for so much..

: I say good job by FIRST and the judges for doing all the can to be fair with so many teams.. and congratulations to the people who won the awards, don't ever think you don't deserve them or won them unrightfully (is that word?) ...

That was never implied. By me, anyway. I'm sure the teams chosen as award winners were very deserving of their awards. It pains me, however, to think that there might have been some teams out there who were just as worthy of award recognition who were shut out because they were not given a fair chance to showcase the results of six+ weeks of hard work to the judges.

Travis




and for those of us who didn't tote home a trophy.. just think about how much easier it was for us to get through the detectors and baggage claim at the airport! ;-)