Championship Issues with Judging

[brycen66]

TLDR: I agree that judging could use some work, but the way I understand it is that in championships one set of judges is assigned to a certain group of teams (maybe 15 teams). After every judge visits their teams they group and make a shortlist for each award. Then award specific judges visit each pit and they see every team on the shortlist for the award.

What is sometimes confusing is that some judges seem to visit pits not to judge but just to check out the robot, like a spectator.

I was the judges representative from team 1678. I talked to every judge that came to our pit, which from 3 regional and champs comes out to about 20 judges. Our team received a different award ( 4 total) based on pit judging from each event we went to.

What I noticed is that at each event the first set of judges asked general questions about the robot and the team and took notes. Soon after that the judges were informal and didn't take notes. Then sometime later we got judges who asked specific questions which in retrospect really pertained to the awards we received.

I am not a judge so maybe one could enlighten us, but this is what I noticed.