How did the use of hand signals by the ref’s work out? As a driver, did they help? As a spectator did they make sense?
I thought it was just a flag of the alliance color pointing at the robot? Not much to that…or did you mean something along a spectator wondering why some guy in a striped shirt was waving a flag?
I believe the OP was referring to this.
This year, in contrast to that, with the whole new, “live-scoring, get score almost immediately after match”, FIRST has hand signals for various penalties, as laid out in this document:
http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default/files/HandSignals.pdf
A video version also seems to be shown at regionals.
This looks like it could be helpful if you know the signals, but if not it makes no difference.
Oh, you mean the refs. The only hand signal I’ve seen the judges use is the hi-five.
I’ve seen the refs doing some kind of arm waving motion when robots have tipped over - does anyone know what that is? I don’t see anything in the guide that indicates what that means…
I would guess it’s the 10-second grace period allowed by [G30]. It’s a good way to count it. You hit them while the motion is going on, you take a foul or T-foul. You hit after the motion stops, you’re OK.
Sorry, GDC, not a big fan of the hand signals. Too much to watch – it’s hard to focus on all that’s going on, and manage to see a foul call. At that point, you’ve missed pretty much everything about the event except the mysterious effect on the score!
It’d be nice to have a recap of the fouls at the end, for “education” purposes, but that isn’t the intent of the game this year, so I guess I can live with it, and try to grow another set of eyes… 
Did you know that if a G7, G27, G28, and G20 occur in that order at the same time, then the referee will appear to be doing the “YMCA”? 
May need to engineer that maneuver. How manhy penalty points would that be?
As a coach, audience member, and side of the field observer… I never noticed the hand signals.
As a coach on the field, no, they didn’t help. This may be different from spectators but typically when I was confused about a call it was one of the fouls not estimated to be “frequent enough” to have its own hand signal. When an alliance partner drives into the key or touches the bridge, it was pretty obvious to everybody.
Sometimes they actually became more confusing. In the quarterfinals at FLR, 3 penalties were called on our alliance with the hand motion of “being touched in opponent key, alley or bridge”. We were on the scoring side of the field and think maybe the ref had her sides of the field mixed up. However the head ref told our students that they could not ask what the fouls were during the match (that would be “discussing a foul”) so we really have no way of knowing.
I applaud the GDC for trying to be as true to the sport as possible. However, with a game being much more complicated than the NBA, even if the game is more appealing to the audience, I think the students are really being cheated by this referee and foul system this year.
Just my $0.02.