Open Judging sessions

[timdavid]

To avoid further hijacking of the thread FLL-Freak started on "Observations from a Tech Judge", I decided to start a new thread on this subject.

At the regional tournaments this season in Minnesota, in order to keep the team activity in the Core Values judging session a secret, these sessions are essentially closed. Each team is allowed one adult spectator to enter the room with the team. Both the spectator and the team members are supposed to keep the activity a secret, and not reveal it to other teams.

My wife was chosen as the spectator, primarily because she serves the role of official team photographer. She (and the kids) came out of the session grinning from ear to ear, and said she had never enjoyed a judging session so much. They were all frustrated that they couldn't describe what the activity was, but both my wife and the kids were able to keep the activity a secret until all the judging was over that day.

Later, during the awards ceremony, the head judge remarked on how wonderful the core values sessions were, and how he wished more people could have seen the teams during these sessions.

I understand why the sessions were essentially closed, and I don't really see a good alternative. But it was a little frustrating to hear the kids had a really fun judging session and not to be able to attend. I would have been even more frustrated if I had not been able to attend the project and technical judging also.

[Dean Hystad]

The lads enjoyed the activity also. I sent my co-coach as she is mother to one of the team members. They did not keep the secret very long and blurted it out (in hushed voices) as soon as they returned to the pits. When my girls did the teamwork activity a couple of years ago they thought it was totally lame. A lot depends on if the activity itself is fun or not.

I think some sort of instant challenge is a great idea. I promoted introducing alliance and using that as the instant challenge, but I couldn't work out the details on how to fit it in the schedule. As things are the head-to-head challenge provides a big empty spot in the schedule between the last judging session and the awards ceremony. Replace that with alliance and there is suddenly a mad rush (like there wasn't already) to compute scores, decide on awards, and chose teams for advancement.

[susanmlynch]

At our qualifier this year, only the project presentation was open to coaches and parents. Technical and teamwork are behind closed doors. It seems to vary from qualifier to qualifier in our region, as last year, both the project and team work were open to coaches/parents. Technical was held out in the middle of a noisy crowded hallway. This years technical judging had a competition table set up in it and the team actually got to show the judges their missions, why their attachments were built the way they were based on task/obstacle. It really helped them engage with the judges and talk about all the work they did, successes and failures. I hope our regional championship adopts this practice as well.