Judge Consistency Between Events

[Xavbro]

After a very busy, exciting and fun weekend at the Lone Star regional, I’ve been able to settle down and collect my thoughts. I want to start by saying that the event overall was amazing. The volunteers were awesome (as usual), the teams were all great to work with and the competition was top level like always. We had a lot of fun and can’t wait to be back there again next year!

What my post is about now is the Rookie All-Star award. Before I get started, I want to clarify a few things. I know the judges decisions aren’t easy ones and I fully respect the judge’s choice for the award. High Energy (5892) definitely an amazing rookie team worthy of the award. They worked hard and their accomplishments definitely deserve recognition.

My concern is the information that we received after the event was over. Of course, our students were upset about not winning RAS. We had went to Bayou 3 weeks before and came away with Rookie Inspiration, so we felt we had a real shot to win RAS. We didn’t win either award so we went to the judges for some insight on what we could do better because we plan on competing for Chairman’s in the future as well. When asking the judge for this information and why we didn’t win, they informed us that they felt we were very deserving of the award but our name just was not brought up in the judges meeting. They told us that the judges that judged us didn’t advocate or mention us in the meeting when they were deciding on the awards. Of course that news was heartbreaking for the kids to hear. They had worked so hard for the award and that was the goal as a team we had set. They were also concerned how the judging process was done seeing how at Bayou, there was clear indication that the judges were working together and discussing which teams were deserving of awards. We understand that at the event, they were short on judges and judging isn’t easy, but shouldn’t there be some sort of consistency between the events?

Our season is done and even though we didn’t achieve our goal of RAS but we still had an amazing, successful season this year and we cannot wait to get back at it again next year. In no way am I saying the teams that won those awards didn’t deserve to or that we should have won RAS. We respect the judge’s decision and congratulate High Energy on their RAS win. I just want to shed some light on the judging process and get some thoughts on it.