We just finished up the Lone Star Regional and our Chairman’s team turned in our feedback form as they were instructed by the rules. At the end of the event they were told that the judges didn’t have time between interviews to do the feedback and that no teams were given feedback.
Did this happen at any other events? Was there an update to the rules that allowed the judges to make this decision? I was pretty happy when the feedback forms came back and for them to be ignored like that was upsetting.
Improvement is part of our process and we were expecting to be able to use the judges feedback to improve our presentation for future years.
Had a highly upset student after one of the events I was at (sad upset, not angry upset) because the feedback didn’t make it back. He ended up with a chat with the Judge Advisor–apparently, the judges’ handwriting wasn’t exactly legible, so feedback was to be emailed once said handwriting was deciphered.
We encountered the exact same issue at Ventura. Turned in the form, requested it at pit admin, requested it after the winner was announced, nobody knew anything about it, no feedback received.
It’s extremely disappointing to have worked so hard on something (for years), and to not get any feedback whatsoever on how it was interpreted or received. The students were even more disappointed than I was. While I don’t disagree with the selection or merits of the team who won, the process and lack of feedback gave me the feeling that “they knew who they wanted and it wasn’t us, and they didn’t care to assist anyone else in improving themselves.”
For an award that FIRST claims to be its highest honor, they sure have a strange way of going about parts of it sometimes.
The same thing happened to us at Sacramento. We turned in the form and video at the beginning of our presentation slot, and when we went to pick it up, only the video was there. I asked pit admin, and they said that the judges hadn’t done feedback at that competition.
At PNW Champs last weekend we received our flash drive that we gave to the judges(They brought it to our pit), but we were told to pick up our notebook that we gave them and the feedback forms at Pit Admin once the judging was over. After waiting about an hour at Pit Admin after the event had finished, we learned that the forms and other stuff we gave them had been lost somewhere in transit, and they couldn’t find them.
I didn’t stick around long enough to figure out whether they eventually found them, as it wasn’t too important, but it would have been nice to have our feedback and notebook back. They told us that if they did find our stuff after the event, that they would send them to us somehow, but I’d be surprised if we receive anything.
However, I do appreciate how judges are attempting to be more friendly and helpful. It really helps for many teams who are new to submitting for Chairman’s, and veterans alike.
Same problem at Rocket City. We got the binder we gave judges back at the end of Saturday, and found no feedback inside. They told the student to come back later. The student and myself came back post-awards and they still had nothing, and the staff didn’t know anything about it. We walked over to the field, where judges were still mingling, found the interview judges, and asked them. We asked them if they knew anything about it, and the woman we were talking to had to call over another judge to ask him (whom had supposedly done it). He told us he would email it to us within a day (we asked it to be quick because we had an event the next week). I gave him my team business card to send it to.
Fast forward a day, nothing. Emailed the regional director (super helpful!) who got in touch with the judge and forwarded us the feedback the next day. The issue is that the feedback didn’t say much of anything. It was INCREDIBLY general, short and at some points, contradictory. For example, under “impressed” they listed “clarity in presentation,” but then under “improvements” they listed “Sharpen your presentation skills. Articulate clearly and concisely your accomplishments.” I suppose there are some ways that this information could be non-contradictory, but overall there’s not much my students can get out of it. The video section had absolutely no notes. My students are sort of under the impression they just forgot to write feedback for us and threw something together, but I really can’t make any guesses as to what happened.
For our second event, the feedback form was missing and we got an email from someone, who then physically mailed it to us. This feedback was more helpful, just confused why it couldn’t have been given to us at the event.
