Can't record our own autos at practice fields?

[gpayne]

Hey there! At a competition, during the drivers meeting, the Judge Advisor together with the Event Partner announced that we would not be allowed to record anything, at all, in the pits or practice fields. At the time, I (as a programmer) was using Slow-Mo on my phone to record my autos, so that I could see finer details about what the auto did or didn’t do correctly. My driver returned from the meeting to inform me of the new rule.

Something didn’t sit right with me, so I went to the EP to clarify. He told me that the rule was intended for recording interviews or taking pictures of other teams’ robots. The Event Partner explicitly told me that as long as I only recorded my own team’s robot, I was fine.

Later in the competition, I am doing so, again using slow-mo to help with fixing my autos. The Judge Advisor is walking by, notices, and gives me a “one and only warning” about it. I attempt to explain that I already talked to the EP about it and he said I was fine, but the JA effectively said “I don’t care, my rule goes, not his.” According to Rule T4 he is wrong, but I decided to let it go there and said okay, not recording for the rest of the day.

My questions:

1. If the EP told me I was fine to record, according to T4 the JA can’t do anything about it, right? The JA is not above the EP?
2. The JA, in explaining to me, told me something like “my JA handbook says that you can’t record in the pits.” Is this true? Does the JA handbook include anything like that?

[Foster]

Welcome to the forum.

The document you are after is here:

https://recf.org/documents/2023/06/guide-to-judging.pdf/

The Judge Advisor (JA) role info is here

Judge Advisor Role Overview

You are correct, T4 says the EP has control of the non-game play at the event. Game Play belongs to the Head Referee(HR).

The Event Partner (EP) guide has a qualification around judging:

On the event day, EPs oversee the operation of the entire event and provide support for the Judges and the Judge Advisor. Event Partners cannot serve as the Judge Advisor for an event they are running ; however, the EP must know and understand the role of the Judges and the Judge Advisor to provide the needed support prior to and during the event. While EPs are responsible to ensure the Judge Guide is adhered to by their judging staff, EPs may not recommend or assign judged awards to any team and decisions on all judged team awards are made by the Judges in consultation with the Judge Advisor. EPs may determine winners of individual, non-team awards such as Volunteer of the Year.

So there is a hands off the judging process by the EP.

In the judges guide it says that any pictures the Judges take for reference, along with any of the materials used for judging (i.e. score sheets) are to be destroyed.

In your example case, you can go back to the EP and talk to them. I would talk to the JA (me being me) and try to sort it out. From above “EPs are responsible to ensure the Judge Guide is adhered to by their judging staff”, and that’s what I would follow.

OTOH, the JA may be cranky about it. Then your outcome may vary.

At events the key event team is the EP, HR and JA. We all work together to have a good outcome for all of the roboteers. Our escalation path is to our regional RECF Event Engagement Manager.

Hope this helps. You can also get more official clarification from your regional Event Engagement Manager ( Robot Events)

[gpayne]

Okay so reading through this, there’s no rule that says we can’t record our own bots. Thanks for the info!

In our example case, (to be blunt) the JA is on a power trip and considers himself the most powerful man at the event.

As someone who (clearly) has run events before, you might understand how weird the following is: the JA was almost never in the Judging Room, but rather he was watching matches, walking through pits, just generally not taking responsibility for the actual judging going on in the Judging Room.

I appreciate your help, and next time I’ll pull up the rulebook when in this situation. Assuming there’s any point in arguing (which there usually isn’t, and certainly wasn’t in this case).

[lacsap]

@gpayne

As someone who (clearly) has run events before, you might understand how weird the following is: the JA was almost never in the Judging Room, but rather he was watching matches, walking through pits, just generally not taking responsibility for the actual judging going on in the Judging Room.

Ok - breathe … my 12 season as coach, referee, EP, and judge (at all levels…). I’ve see a lot - if Judge Advisor is outside the judging room, they are doing their role 110%… So, let’s try to figure out the signals you observed - JA explicitly tells all not to record videos in pit and practice fields… My gut, there is a reason for this hard stop. From experience, people recording interviews in locations where teams are at, and recording of teams without their knowledge.

These are real situations. So if venue says no recording at practice fields at request of JA, there is likely a good reason for this. Please support your EP, JA, and HR by respecting their wishes.

Practice fields are not your team’s workshop. You have to follow constraints for using them at each venue.

[Foster]

@gpayne

As someone who (clearly) has run events before,

Yea, just a few since 2007.

@gpayne

JA was almost never in the Judging Room, but rather he was watching matches, walking through pits, just generally not taking responsibility for the actual judging going on in the Judging Room

To be fair, the only time the judges are in the judging room is “inital meeting”, “lunch”, “pre-deliberations” and “deliberations”. With the advent of being able to read notebooks at home during the week before, there is less in the room time.

We start off the day with going over the game (how it’s played, things to look for in matchs, scoring, etc.), judging criteria, how to do pit interviews, and get team assignments. Everybody heads out.

We meet for lunch, talk over what we’ve seen, etc. Back out to talk some more to teams.

We’ll meet for a conference to talk about who the preliminary top teams are, possibly sending out a different team of judges to interview them.

JA goes and asks the EP to give them the qualification rounds rankings and skills ranking. Takes a quick look at the “Match Anomaly Log” and collect any “Field Note to Judges”.

Then we meet one last time, reach consensus on the awards, put together the info for the award presentation, gather up all the materials into a “to be destroyed box” and they are done.

The JA then wrangles the presentation of awards with the EP. (JA does them, honored guest does them, each judge does one, it can vary from event to event). The JA grabs the box of judging materials and disposes of it. (Mine go to the next shred event a my landfill).

Except for those times everyone is pretty much talking to teams, watching matches, cruising the pits, etc.

When I’m the JA, I don’t get to decide, I just facilitate. So for the rest of the time I’m also out and about, looking at robots, talking to teams, watching matches, etc.

So the JA not in the room is perfectly fine. Not seeing judges in the room is great it means they are out talking to teams.

Hope this helps too.

Good luck in your next event!!

[gpayne]

@lacsap

if Judge Advisor is outside the judging room, they are doing their role 110%

that’s actually a really good point… never thought about it that way, I guess because I’ve never really seen that. At most of the comps I’ve been to, the JA and Judges (except interviewers ofc) are in the room scrambling to judge all the notebooks in time (which I guess makes sense here, because at this comp we submitted ntbks online so they had them done before the day of…)

@lacsap

Please support your EP, JA, and HR by respecting their wishes.

Oh for sure! One of my points in my original question is that I asked the EP and he said it was perfectly fine, which is where confusion happened. I had never heard of that rule at any competition before, so I had wanted to clarify exactly what was allowed and what wasn’t which is when I had that conversation with the EP.

@Foster

To be fair, the only time the judges are in the judging room is “inital meeting”, “lunch”, “pre-deliberations” and “deliberations”. With the advent of being able to read notebooks at home during the week before, there is less in the room time.

Ah see, the reason I was confused by all the time spent walking around is that this was my first competition where we submitted ntbks online normally, we hand it to them in person and so we don’t see them much bc they spend all day scoring ntbks.

@Foster

When I’m the JA, I don’t get to decide, I just facilitate. So for the rest of the time I’m also out and about, looking at robots, talking to teams, watching matches, etc.

I guess that’s a great point… I’ve just never seen that before

Thanks to both @lacsap and @Foster for the advice and input!