Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

It's not in the criteria for the awards. It's not relevant. When judges go off criteria it's always a problem because then teams don't know what they are being judged on... it's a mess.

I don't think we can rightly expect the one or two-sentence award descriptions to be exhaustive lists of all necessary-and-sufficient criteria for award eligibility.

That the awards are judged by human judges who interview teams on the spot in the pits is more or less a guarantee that awards will be determined by a huge number of factors that are not explicitly in the descriptions. Are some of these undesirable? Of course, we humans are highly imperfect creatures - like it or not, teams are probably judged, to some extent, on whether they were interviewed before or after lunch.

However, I'd contend that along with the bad comes a fair bit of good. If a judge sees members of a certain team behaving ungraciously, that judge is probably going to be less-likely to give that team an award. I think this is probably a good thing, even though plenty of the awards specify nothing about standards of team behavior.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

That is why I followed with an inspired student explaining the mechanism in detail, which is basically the criteria for the award. If a student understands and can explain it, who cares who built it? (Though this is an academic debate mostly; it's not like my team's robots have no student involvement)

I still think that's a bit more strongly than I'd put it. I do think that student involvement in the design and manufacture process counts for something - personally, the vast majority of the value I got from FIRST was not technical knowledge of robot parts but the realities of working on a difficult challenge under a deadline with limited resources, having to learn to troubleshoot, to figure out what you need to know, what you don't know, and fill in the gaps.

That kind of meta-learning is something that I honestly don't think students can get just by watching, and so I do feel that FIRST has a strong reason to incentivize teams to actively involve the students.

They wouldn't, which is why technical judging went off without a hitch for us. The only reason they would have this suspicion is if they sent culture judges to your pit asking them 18 different "gotcha questions", then jumped on your kids for saying a sponsor EDMed a single part of the robot. The witch hunt has to stop. It's harassment, and it's casting broad judgments on entire teams based on preconceived notions.

If that's the nature of the judging in question, then yeah, that sounds pretty out-of-line.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I don't think we can rightly expect the one or two-sentence award descriptions to be exhaustive lists of all necessary-and-sufficient criteria for award eligibility.

While I agree that it wouldn't be remotely feasible, it is reasonable to believe that technical awards are based solely on the technical, rather than whether my students can maneuver through a Q&A without mentioning adult involvement.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I don't think we can rightly expect the one or two-sentence award descriptions to be exhaustive lists of all necessary-and-sufficient criteria for award eligibility.

That the awards are judged by human judges who interview teams on the spot in the pits is more or less a guarantee that awards will be determined by a huge number of factors that are not explicitly in the descriptions. Are some of these undesirable? Of course, we humans are highly imperfect creatures - like it or not, teams are probably judged, to some extent, on whether they were interviewed before or after lunch.

However, I'd contend that along with the bad comes a fair bit of good. If a judge sees members of a certain team behaving ungraciously, that judge is probably going to be less-likely to give that team an award. I think this is probably a good thing, even though plenty of the awards specify nothing about standards of team behavior.

For what it's worth, I think Andrew has been in a blue shirt at more events than I have been to events in any capacity. Opinions on award criteria availability can be discussed in this thread (and probably should) but Andrew has to train judges on criteria so I'm sure he knows a fair bit of it.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

For what it's worth, I think Andrew has been in a blue shirt at more events than I have been to events in any capacity. Opinions on award criteria availability can be discussed in this thread (and probably should) but Andrew has to train judges on criteria so I'm sure he knows a fair bit of it.

Lol, I'm not THAT old.


No, Oblarg raises a good point - the criteria are relatively open and by design allow interpretation. But, it has been my experience that the best way to settle a disagreement over who gets awards [1] is to work section by section through the award criteria. It provides a common framework for discussion. Does student involvement factor in? We are human, if a student just seems overly enthusiastic and knowledgeable or even just incredibly personable, that's a distinct advantage.

Really what I was getting at is that judges should absolutely NOT be grilling students to find if the mentors or the students did the work. The award criteria includes that students must be able to describe the stuff [2]. So, if you can't describe it, you don't get an award. Who cares who did it from the award criteria perspective. NOW if a student is more involved they are likely going to be both more informed and more passionate.




[1] OMG SPOILERS judges want to give awards to other teams! This actually isn't about judging in FRC, more a decent conflict resolution skill I suggest folks pick up.

[2] Ok, I think if you read close, it says "team representative" which can TECHNICALLY include mentors.