Again, can’t comment to FRC, but as a FLL and FTC Judge Advisor, I use training time to clarify this. Deliberations are one of the toughest things and I make sure to tell my judges to “Speak up if there’s anything to say”.
but only had two sentences about the deliberation process and some boxes that say “Determine Top Teams Seen by Each Pair” and “Review and Discuss Top Teams” that only imply that the Judges should advocate for the teams that they saw.
Technically, these are the teams that they should be advocating primarily for because they have the most familiarity with them. Also the second “Review and Discuss Top Teams” doesn’t limit them to the ones they saw. To me the two phrases sound like give top teams you saw, and discuss top teams in general.
Perhaps a short video might be appropriate since the document I received was already 34 pages long.
Again…all FLL/FTC based.
I vaguely recall a webinar floating around perhaps it was IL specific. This is the crappy part, is that judging has significant effort involved. There’s a document, video and webinar that you have to go through. Then the day of the event, you show up early and have a few extra hours of training. Then you rush through the judging in one day. As someone who’s brand new to FIRST…this is a tough position to fill in.
Frequently, they are first-time Judges…have no real interest in what is going on…are naturally shy and quiet individuals and are overwhelmed when a (group of) loud, enthusiastic and outgoing Judge talks up
These are interesting issues we can try to tackle.
First-time Judges:
There’s unfortunately no way around some percentage of first-time Judges. The solution, specifically for Illinois FTC, is two-fold
- have enough veteran judges to pair up
- give as many opportunities for training as possible (Judging Manual, Webinar/Call 1wk b4, Morning Training)
No Real Interest:
The only way around this is to up our volunteer coordination game. The goal with this is to try and recruit judges at the right time. For Illinois FTC, this just means ensuring our Event Coordinators know this, and it has been getting better. For FRC as far as I can tell, the JA for Midwest Regional seemed really prepared a few months out.
Shy Judges:
Illinois FTC’s way of solving this, is to have well trained Judge Advisors. Ensuring equitable deliberation time and moderating the conversation is the role of the JA. They should bring out as much information as they can. BUT they also need to do it quickly and efficiently (a really hard thing). So we have state-trained JAs (just like FRC has HQ-trained JAs) to make sure we get them communicating about their experiences.
The hope of winning the awards given out at these events are the carrots that lead the people doing the work to continue doing the work.
I think we’ve raised in this thread whether it should be the sole carrot. Personally as a mentor, it is not the carrot that leads me to do the work. I would consider not submitting for Chairman’s but would not (unless students had really good reasons) stop continuing to host FTC events, mentor FLL teams, and plant tulips at our school. These activities allow me to teach students how to be organized, how to be a leader/mentor, and how we affect our environment/how “it’s-not-easy-to-just-plant-tulips”.
If there is something broken in the Judge Room, it will never be fixed if it is not discussed openly and honestly.
The number one issue is that a lot of our first-time judges stay as first-time judges. There’s tons of MN threads going on, and a lot of people discussing how volunteer shortage is a big issue. FIRST, as an organization, is like 90% (I want to even say 99%) volunteer-driven and FUNDAMENTALLY relies on its volunteer pool for operation. While I understand that perceived inconsistency is an issue, my point is this we need to determine what is the root and which is more important, more necessary to solve. 1) Bringing greater consistency into judging or 2) ensuring that we continue to have judges, good judges.
For 1) we only have anecdotal evidence, with very many unknowns and a lack of perspectives. In addition, winning awards should not be the end-all for teams. There are probably other team issues that need fixing too. Frankly, what is broken in the Judge Room (at many events) is 2), there’s a constant strain on volunteer pool (in some regions), a lack of volunteers, and a lot of last-minute judges.
It’s why I’m imploring OP to become a judge. Not only will we get closer to solving 2), but we’ll also get more perspectives for 1).
I honestly see no resolution to this particular case. In my view, OP is probably a tired mentor (long season…) and got bummed out his students got bummed out. It sounds like his team worked really hard and was a great rookie contender, and got beat out. It also sounds like his team is going to be striving to kick even more butt in the second year. This is the best resolution I can foresee. His team got beat out by great teams, and he’s going to motivate his students to work hard.
Since I still advocate for solving 2), I also hope he takes my advice and tries to judge or convinces others to judge.