Judges at Championships

[NWChen]

How many judges should a team expect to talk to (in the pits) during Championships?

[Katie_UPS]

My experience is a little outdated, but the estimate is "not many." There are a lot of teams (even more now) and only a limited amount of judges. My uninformed speculative conclusion has been that teams who made the shortlist for one or more awards may see more judges in the pits, but the vast majority of teams will not see very many.

[Jacob Bendicksen]

It's usually pretty similar to regional events on Thursday and Friday - you'll see ~3 sets of technical judges, a set or two of team/outreach judges, and potentially some Chairman's judges if you're competing for Chairman's. If you see judges on Saturday, it means that you're in the running for an award, so congrats

However, there have been some instances of 'elite' teams seeing judges who aren't judging them, but who are just curious about the team. Teams can get pretty worked up about this, but don't worry too much - you'll get judged fairly.

EDIT: in response to what Katie said, what she's seen can definitely be true on Saturday and sometimes Friday, but all teams get an initial pass from the judges on Thursday or Friday.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Jacob Bendicksen

It's usually pretty similar to regional events on Thursday and Friday - you'll see ~3 sets of technical judges, a set or two of team/outreach judges, and potentially some Chairman's judges if you're competing for Chairman's. If you see judges on Saturday, it means that you're in the running for an award, so congrats

However, there have been some instances of 'elite' teams seeing judges who aren't judging them, but who are just curious about the team. Teams can get pretty worked up about this, but don't worry too much - you'll get judged fairly.

EDIT: in response to what Katie said, what she's seen can definitely be true on Saturday and sometimes Friday, but all teams get an initial pass from the judges on Thursday or Friday.

If there are roving "Chairman's"/outreach judges, we didn't see any in either of the years we received a RCA (2011, 2013)

[Jacob Bendicksen]

Originally Posted by BigJ

If there are roving "Chairman's"/outreach judges, we didn't see any in either of the years we received a RCA (2011, 2013)

Huh. That's interesting - we've seen judges that ask about more than robot stuff (team structure, outreach, etc.) every year that I've been in St. Louis. I'm not sure why that is, though.