Hey all, I’m a FIRST alumni and current mentor for FRC team 4004, and I have recently been invited to judge at an FTC event! I’m incredibly excited, very honored, and just the littlest bit nervous.
I was wondering if anyone here has experience judging at an event, and if you have any advice for me. I was in charge of the awards team on my FRC team as a student, so I have a little experience, but none with FTC.
Let me know any tips you may have.
I would start with the FTC judge training available through FIRST. You can access this by going to your FIRST dashboard, go to Volunteer Registration and Roles Missing Certification. From there, you can find the event you applied for, click “Review Outstanding Tasks” and this will take you to the relevant training. The training does a good job of describing awards in FTC and the judging process.
In addition, I would skim through the game manual to understand the game, awards, and the basic constraints on teams in FTC.
Good luck with your start in judging! It’s an incredibly rewarding and educational experience!
The best part is that you are not alone. Pair up with another, experienced judge. Observe what they do. Mostly just ask questions, both to other judges and the teams. You’ll do fine! Judging is very fun and rewarding.
Like Eric said, I would read the award descriptions beforehand.
I would say be prepared to read a lot (engineering notebooks), walk around, and talk a lot. It’s good to have something to take notes with/on, but whatever notes you take cannot leave the event - so keep that in mind.
Have an open mind. One thing that caught me off guard was that not all teams are prepped at talking to judges . Some teams have a whole speech prepared and some of them will answer your question with the bare minimum. Asking “tell me about your robot” may not get you much - that doesn’t mean students don’t know or don’t care. They may just need help: ask about their design process, what works or doesn’t work, how they picked a solution… Even if it’s hard to get anything but a one word answer, try to learn something about each team you talk to.
I think this is really important so I’m writing it again: Students may give you minimal/short/shoulder shrug answers - that doesn’t mean students don’t know or don’t care.
Lastly, you will be part of writing the scripts. Paying attention and taking notes when reading notebooks or interviewing or looking at the robot will help you when you need a specific detail for a cheesy pun.
In addition to the above advice, which is excellent, know that your head judge will make sure that you are paired up with someone experienced and will guide you. Don’t fret, it will be successful.
It’s often hard for me to think of questions to ask. So I like to have 6-7 standard questions in my notes that I can ask right away. If I think of a question during the presentation I write it down so I have it for Q&A at the end. If it seems like a good team and they have a great script and cover everything very well. I ask about specific parts they used. What is the gear ratio on the GoBilda motor? How do you like the Rev Mech wheels? Things like that. I also recommend watching some of the FUN behind the bot and Ri3D video’s. It helps understand the game plus they ask very good questions.
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