Pit judging

I was wondering what materials other teams have for pit judging and how they store them?

I remember that 254 had a touchscreen in 2022 was it for pit judging and how did they make the interface?

Last season we hand out small flyers to judge and gave judges we really engaged with a team binder. we had a slideshow with photos from build session playing and a full color team binder to show them. We brought some of our prototypes as well.

I appreciate any suggestions and feedback

It sounds like you’re on the right track already. There’s no one “right way” to present materials in the pits, it’s about what works best for your team as far as space in the pit, cost, and your presenters preferences.

Our team has two large TVs (run by a pair of mini PCs) that sit at the top of our pit that we use to display everything from sponsors, to live matches, to CAD, to various other judging materials. The nice thing about TVs is they’re flexible, and you can put basically anything you want on them. That said, TVs also take up quite a bit of space and require some planning to integrate them into the pit well.

Meanwhile, our awards team also utilizes several binders to present information depending on the judges we talk to (we have a safety binder, an outreach/chairmans binder, and a more generalized awards binder). Binders can have the benefit of being more interactive and can facilitate conversation with judges better than directing them to look at a screen at times.

When possible, we also have spare mechanisms and prototypes on-hand to demonstrate robot features and the design process, but often you can use the robot itself to explain these things.

Flyers are also a good approach because it gives judges something they can take with them, beyond just their own notes. This area is something my team needs to work on tbh.

Beyond that, cool touchscreen kiosks are nice to have, and can highlight your teams media/programming capabilities, but by themselves (in my opinion at least) they don’t add much to a judging presentation aside from being accessible when team members are busy (though, IMO, if judges have to go to a kiosk to get information because you don’t have anyone on your team available to talk to them, you’re doing something wrong).

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Part of wonders if the touchscreen can be used to help show judges the information that you have in your binder more efficiently so instead of it be for when pit team is busy it’s a tool to pit team showcase there work as they talk with the judges

My advice would be never to assume that judges are going to have time to read a binder. Whatever you want to put in writing for judges, keep it to one page.

Touchscreen Display
254 has a large touchscreen on the front of our Pit for many years. Honestly the Pit display is more-so for visitors, not so much judges. At worlds we estimate we have 1000 people visit our Pit every day, the display helps save our voices and lets people look over the shoulder of the one at the screen and read so lots can learn even in a noisy Pit environment. Also the display is great for people who want to learn but not talk, introverts, non-verbal, etc.

How it works:
The giant display is really a touchscreen monitor whose content is a hdmi-display-out from a mini NUC PC. We setup the PC so no login pswd is required, and we put a shortcut on the desktop we can click to launch the html webapp that is the touchscreen software. Full screen the Chrome app and the webapp looks seamless.

The content of what is on the display get improved every year, but is largely the same information on our Team Website.

We now have sections for:

  • Team (about the team, size, founding)
  • Robots (History of previous seasons, like our website)
  • Technical (basically the current year’s tech binder)
    – 2 years ago we add 3D CAD models you can spin around and zoom in and exploded-view
    – Last season we added buttons while in 3D view which zoom in on key features with explaining text
  • Outreach (events, impact)
  • Sponsors (sponsor logos)

What we do when presenting to Judges

  • Before beginning:
    – Ensure we have time (are we about to go to a match? ask if they can they can come back later or would like to follow us to the queue/practice field)
    – Pit students responsible for presenting (usually only 2-4 students, mechanical/software/nontechnical) stay in the Pit
    – Other students move out or to edge to talk to visitors and give space in the Pit for Judges to come in and look closely
  • When presenting to technical judges:
    – Briefly cover our game strategic analysis and why the robot architecture is what it is
    – Overview each subsystem quickly and ask Judges which one(s) they’d like more detail on
    – Use printed out Technical Binder for specific numbers, or maybe the 3D model on the Pit Display to show something internal that’s hard to see with your eyes
    – Run our usual pre-match systems check as a way to showcase all the subsystems and states of the robot
  • When presenting to nontechnical Judges:
    – Use Pit display for showing team structure and Outreach events
    – Use Entrepreneurship Binder which shows team finances and budget breakdown
  • When concluding:
    – Highlight when our next match is if Judges want to see robot in action on the field
    – Ask judges if they’d like a copy of the Binder(s) to take back to judges room, we often get this back after the event so we don’t have to keep reprinting
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Do you use a custom interface to navigate the content on the display?

How do you store your judging materials for quick access?

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What does your monitor holder look like? Do you keep it with a shelf for the binders and what not? I’ve been looking for some good displays for this. Thanks!

I don’t know the specifics of the webapp on the display, I’ve asked our students maybe they can provide some details.

The other judging materials like the Tech Binders sit in a drawer of one of the toolboxes near the front of the Pit, just behind the Pit Display. Sometimes we leave binders out on the toolbox top surfaces for easier grabbing by visitors when the robot is not in the Pit.

The monitor has threaded holes in the back, a couple on one side are where we attach a custom flat aluminum bar with holes and clamps. The clamps grab onto the vertical tubes of one of the legs of the lighting truss that we put up over our Pit.

This setup keeps the display in off and in front of the toolchests and lets us leave behind the display and truss when we rollout just the toolboxes to a new pit location, such as at Worlds where you go behind the fields.

PowerPoint with button hyperlinks to other slides works very well. That’s what we use for our display and I have even used to make a training “simulation” of an HMI so most people using could get experience without needing fancy software, access privileges, or shutting down a production line.

As a sometimes-judge, let me say, don’t get too caught up in pre-prepared materials. The teams that really get the judges’ attention are the ones who can directly communicate passionately and authoritatively about their team and their robot and their special sauce. If you want to use materials to HELP you communicate that to the judges, that’s okay, but not necessarily a benefit.

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I was wondering if you were able to get more info about the webapp?