I was unable to go to the EP Summit in July. I did create a presentation about our process to give feedback to the roboteer / team and Dan did a very good job of presenting it.
In the pilot the rule from Tarek at RECF that I could not change the RECF form. So what I did was shrink it slightly and then print it on legal (8.5/14) with the RECF form shifted far left on the front and far right on the back. This gave me a 4" margin on one end. I ran a perforation down to make the strip easy to separate from the main form. Judges wrote comments along the strip, it was removed at the end of the judging and placed back into the notebook.
Because it was intended to help teams, there was no “judging” ie you scored a 2 on this section. Judges were asked to put comments in that would help the team, be they either positive or negative comments (things that were very good, things that need work).
The audience sound at the Summit was pretty bad. I could hear the speaker (Dan) but could not hear most of the comments clearly. There were people on the chat that were supportive of the comments and what I did. There were people in the meet that were supportive, there were also some that were not.
On the no-support side it boils down to time/people. EP’s have a lack of judges and that forces the issue of how much time they can spend commenting. I’ve been very lucky to get a large number of judges and they all were willing to write comments.
EP’s in general (me included) are worried about the backlash from mentors/parents around the comments. I did not have any issues with last years pilot, but I witnessed snide comments about the judges being biased (*). So it’s a valid concern.
The paper method worked since it was simple, didn’t need tech other than the box of pens.
Using electronic stuff is problematic for the events that I run, there is not public wi-fi and cell coverage is iffy at best. I’m using all my tablets for scoring and all 4 of the PC’s to run the events.
Based on the meeting, it is unlikely that RECF will come up with a way to do feedback.
I’m going to continue my pilot into this year at the events that I run, since I’d like to have a second set of data points.
(* Bias: I had a parent complain that the judges were biased. The were all from the Air Force, none of them had roboteers at the event. I explained this to the parent, they huffed off that “they still were not being fair”. Sigh… )