MAR Competitions

[Carl_the_Llama]

Why are the officals in the MAR district so bad at their jobs? And why do the volunteers think theyre so much better than everyone?

[orangemoore]

Do you mind giving context/evidence to your claims? Because your post currently holds no value without a team number or name to put this statement too.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Carl_the_Llama

And why do the volunteers think theyre so much better than everyone?

I don't think volunteers think that they are better than everyone. But they are there helping, in the pits, in the stands, on the field, in the background making these events happen. I think if you would also help and volunteer that you would also find the happiness and inner peace that they do, after all you are a llama....

Edited to add:
Sorry wrong lama

[Carl_the_Llama]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

Do you mind giving context/evidence to your claims? Because your post currently holds no value without a team number or name to put this statement too.

The head ref at the Hatboro-Horsham competitiom said and I quote, "You can't expect us to get all the calls right." Whats the point of the ref then?

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Carl_the_Llama

The head ref at the Hatboro-Horsham competitiom said and I quote, "You can't expect us to get all the calls right." Whats the point of the ref then?

I hope that when you become an adult you volunteer to be a referee; only then will you understand how immatiure that sounds. In the meantime, unsupported claims by an anonymous poster don't carry much weight here.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Carl_the_Llama

The head ref at the Hatboro-Horsham competitiom said and I quote, "You can't expect us to get all the calls right." Whats the point of the ref then?

You do realize that you just now volunteered to be a ref, right?

[aashay2035]

They were several issues at the competition of scoring. Also the teams themselves were not getting points they deserved. (I personally knew of two separate times when this happened in eliminations.)
I believe that first should start implementing video replay if the teams request it. It should be elimination matches have video replays. If an alliance challenges and wins they can use it. But if they lose they will not have video replay to challenge. It gives fair chance to all teams that they diverse.

[EricH]

I just brought this up in another thread, but by suggesting video replay you also just volunteered as a ref.

FIRST doesn't allow it.
Technically, it's a big challenge (and there are numerous CD threads on the topic).
And finally, you seem to want to find out what it's like being a volunteer. VIMS is still accepting volunteers...

[whitetail]

Video replay needs to be a part of the matches of FIRST. I saw many people get foul at a MAR event and nothing was called.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by whitetail

Video replay needs to be a part of the matches of FIRST. I saw many people get foul at a MAR event and nothing was called.

See post above yours. You also just volunteered to referee.

Referees are also scorers in this game. You want them to focus solely on fouls, lobby HQ to make a game that doesn't rely on referees scoring stuff during the match.

[Rman1923]

You have to realize that this is one of the first weeks of competition and that this is the first time most of these refs are reffing the game. I'm sure that as the season progresses they will get better at noticing fouls (as well as teams getting better at not committing them). FIRST is also probably going to tweak the workforce so that the teams are better covered by refferees and everyone geta a fairer chance. Remember that Referees are people that they want what's best for the teams as well as what's fair for the teams. Keep in mind that they spend their weekends at events voluntarily and just want to make sure the game is played fairly and to have fun, not get yelled at by teams for making a bad call.

[DonRotolo]

OK, so Carl, Aashay and whitetail need to confirm they've signed up in VIMS for an event, right? Until then, I don't want to hear your whining.

[PayneTrain]

I think the snaps telling you that you volunteered yourself to be a referee aren't super productive, but as someone who is not a referee I guess I can't speak too much to it. Let's try to take a positive approach from the perspective as someone on a team.

Take the lessons learned from your experience in Week 1 and apply them the same way the GDC and its intertwined parties do. We went to a local district today to take notes on a variety of things. We were directly scouting 12 teams and tabulating things like average match turnaround for a team, potential symptoms of disconnects, number of field faults (I don't think there was ever a field fault), match cycle times, field discrepancies with regards to the team or official versions, and how referees were making calls. (I also know that I need to build up a tolerance or an escape plan for when one of those inane parody videos plays... sorry, not my scene)

We're expecting a similar crew at our event so we are taking our concerns proactively and hope to use our data to advocate for all teams at the event. Everyone needs to take an approach of "we're all in this together" or we'll inevitably rip this thing apart.

[techhelpbb]

Look I spent Friday/Saturday/Sunday putting up then tearing down one of the most complex fields I have seen since 1996 with a group of seriously committed people. Then spent from Friday at 4PM till Sunday at 7:30PM starting each day at 7:00AM as CSA at Mount Olive.

You barely saw me on the field. I watched 2 matches.
The other CSA walked till his feet were killing him and I worked until my back was in full on spasm and I had to take serious painkillers because the show must go on.

I do not know what happened at other events but I can tell you: all of that and I am still sympathetic to the issues of the teams that came to play a game despite their own hardships some of which a few bad referee calls make look trivial (doubt most teams had their cars catch fire on the way to this event).

Sorry you feel slighted. You'd get more sympathy from me and others if you: mentored for a team then did multiple volunteer roles (3 so far for me between FLL, FTC and FRC). This is not cheap or easy to do for anyone. We all do the hard thing and for the best reason.

I hope you get perfect calls at every event you attend but I would not volunteer to referee specifically because you can get eaten alive as you blast through 80+ 10 minute games in a relentless cycle on a field with 6 robots going every which way. I know why referees burn out. Maybe the pain would less if there were more help to referee as apposed to a forum full of people to heckle their every slight. I am not saying not to protest: even FRC11 had a few questions at Mount Olive, but everyone please remember GP.

[BeardyMentor]

The correct question to be asking here is "how can we help the Referees with their job?" Most people, like 99%, really do want to do a good job and this number is probably higher in a completely volunteer position like refereeing an FRC event.

I don't know exactly how we, the teams, can help the referees. But I am sure there is a way. Instead of looking to blame, lets find some way to be constructive and positive while fixing the problems.