Frank Answers Fridays: July 12, 2013: Question about Q&A

[Pault]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Yeah, if a ref does this, s/he is a terrible ref. Just telling the truth.

I absolutely agree. But the point is, who is to say that it won't happen. Even the person who asked the original question said "I have seen Q&A results presented to inspectors been ignored." FIRST can't garuntee that their volunteers are going to be good, so Mr. Merrick has to make sure that teams know things won't always go their way. I just wish that after the fact FIRST would have a way to find out about the incident so that they can prevent it from happening in the future.

[rachelholladay]

I think the important thing to remember is that every inspector and referee is a volunteer and that there is no way FIRST can be responsible for the action of every volunteer. I remember a team once saying (on CD) there was one particular rule from the manual (I believe relating to defense...) that made the actions of their robot legal. Since they kept getting penalties getting called on them, the drive captain resorted to carrying an index card with the rule written out so that he could always respectfully and exactly challenge the penalty. If there is one particular rule or Q&A that you think will be sticky, keep a copy of it with you. After all, there is no harm in being prepared. The official may still disagree and you might not get your way, but at least you will have made the point clearly. In sports calls get made all the time that people disagree with, but you kind just have to deal with it.