Judging a FIRST Robotics Competition

FIRST is an organization dedicated to inspiring students to working in science and engineering fields. They do so by creating high-octane competitions that feel like sporting events, but in which the central competitors are student built robots. For those who are interested in volunteer work, judging such a competition is exciting, exhausting, and rewarding.

As a judge, you are asked to be at the competition full-time (generally a Friday and Saturday from 8 AM till 5PM). You're told the rules and what kinds of attributes to look for in teams for the various awards at a dinner on the Thursday before the competition. On Friday and Saturday you spend a lot of time talking to students and observing matches. The judging process is pretty well-structured - pairs of judges agree on who should be placed on the short list for a given award, and then all the judges check out the short list teams before coming to a consensus (and usually unanimous) judgment.

I just judged the FIRST regional competition here in Pittsburgh. I've attached a few pictures; more are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlauwers/sets/72157604141784627/

I had some time to take a few gigapans as well: http://www.gigapan.org/searchGigapansList.php?keywords=FIRST+Robotics+Competition&widget=header_top

Posted 5 months ago by tlauwers

Tagged with: competition first

Readers' comments

Hey Tom, can you tell us in 3 sentences what the contest game was this year? For once, I don't know! Posted 5 months ago by illah

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