[FVC]: Longer competitions

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by KathieK

Does anyone have ideas about how to make the judging schedule less hectic/stressful?

I haven't judged since the Orangeburg pilot last year, but I actually think the two-day format would be helpful here. I personally felt like I didn't get enough chance to get a feel for what designs were working on the field (important for the Create award of that year, roughly equivalent to the Innovate award now), or to catch any in-the-trenches events (which might have Amaze award implications). It's unfortunate that the judges can't be everywhere at the same time, but it's just the nature of the one-day format.

The Create award was especially hard to judge that year, as we all had seen different robots in the rooms (and there were some great Half-Pipe Hustle robots in that group, none of whom we'd seen on the field). We solved that by sending me out with my digital camera to get shots of the shortlist teams--I'd highly recommend some means of doing this at an event (perhaps during inspection). In the absence of some visual flair (see also: Simbotics, Vexy Things, Checkmate), they all start to run together after a while!

This would be a little more radical, but what about having teams submit a short version of the key information before the competition for the judges to read? Give teams two pages, send the PDF to FIRST, and make sure the judges receive this far enough ahead to get an initial feel for the teams.