[Foster]

I'm a friend of an FRC ref (Hi Rizzo) and I'm impressed with the work that they do during build season and in the weeks in between each week (something about the GDC changing/tweeking the rules). Going to two events and five off season contests the refs have always been great. In a game that is super fast for 3 minutes and at the end can be won or lost in an inch to be a ref is a scary rule.

In talking to other refs it's pretty clear that they spend a lot of time talking to each other about what happens each week.

I produce a number of VEX events, it's the same thing. We stick with a common set of Refs. They are good event 1 match 1, they are amazing at event 5 match 60. At our events I run the drivers meeting. I tell the roboteer drivers that the head ref has the final call. And in the event the ref makes a bad call, they should come and see me and I will confirm that the head ref makes the final call and I back the ref.

In the last 5 years, I've had three parents question calls, two kids that were forced by their mentor, and a single mentor. The two kids took the call with gracious professionalism, the mentor had a blinding flash of the obvious. The parents were harder, two understood the rules and were happy. The last person wanted to argue. I opted to refund her money and she and her team decided to go home.

On the other hand in 5 years I've run over 1000 matches and they all fly well. The refs know their job, are good, fair and follow the rules. In FRC land you can ask, they will all explain the rule, the call, how not to do it again and a thanks for coming to play this week.

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Short digression on the inspectors. Same thing, rules driven, want to see the details. Train one roboeer on the inspection process. Have the paper docs ready. Walk the inspector through the robot, handing paper has you go. Preguess their questions. Have the rules and you responses ready. Don't be fat, have sharp edges, crap flowing across the robot.

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Bottom line we are all volunteers and we do it as much as a professional
job as we can do. But with 3 min games, it's lots harder than you expect.

I've been a ref, a judge and a queuer. Getting robots in queue is the worst job.

Oh wait, the hardest job is signing all those people up to help for a 10 hour day for "free lunch". Lets do training for our Hanna and Rita, your Kim and the Jenny clones everywhere.