In a recent tournament, my team was awarded both Design and Excellence awards, however, a day ago the 2nd place team in Design is arguing that you cannot be awarded both at the same time and that the Design award goes to the next best team that didn’t receive Excellence. Is there any official manual or guide that states this? I dont wanna lose my awards D:
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The judges guide is this document.
I don’t think it stipulates anything about award priorities or that one can’t get an award if they win another award.
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No, there is nothing that says you can not win more then one award.
You will not loose your award, they have no grounds to take it away.
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Actually, teams may only receive one judged award at an event. This stated in Judge Guide and related presentations on judging.
The problem is once event is over, all scoring rubrics and notes should be destroyed.
So yes you can lose award (happened to one of my teams).
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From the Judge Guide:
- Equitability: No team shall be awarded more than one judged award at an event. Top teams often win robot performance awards in addition to judged awards. Individual awards presented to adults, such as Volunteer of the Year Award, do not affect a team’s eligibility for a judged award.
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Oh damn, I see. But in the guide there’s a table that also says that Excellence is both a Judge and Performance award, so in this case could it be counted as a performance?
It is counted as a performance award…
…and a Judged award. You cannot technically win both.
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Why would it only count towards judged in this scenario? It really will have to be asked on the official Q&A. It should be considered a performance and judged by the definition in the rules so teams should be able to still win two awards.
It is a Judged award because the Judges determine who earned it. Performance is considered based on being one of top ranking in qualifying matches and robot skills. Judges may also consider Online challenges and MUST have engineering design notebook.
No need for Q&A - you can NOT have Design and Excellence at a single event. Having our team graciously return the Design award a few years ago was a learning experience for them.
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How does this other team know they were 2nd place in Design?
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I was wondering that too - they should not.
The RECF Regional Support Manager can sort through it.
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No, they shouldn’t.
Any team at the tournament would be able to raise the issue, I would think, but no one should be expecting they are the ones that are going to get it.
Good luck to the RSM
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I compete and also judge a couple tournaments. Yes, you can get Design and Excellence. However, its often looked down on or is ill-advised since its seen as a waste of a state spot as well as a 2nd place Excellence. Might as well give it to a team who did really well but didnt get excellence, and especially if they didnt already get Tournament Champs so they can atleast walk away with something.
No you can NOT get both Excellence and Design at same event. Please follow the procedures in Judge Guide - which is the requirement for RECF sanctioned qualifying events.
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I may be in the minority, but I really dislike the attitude that Design Award is 2nd place Excellence. No where is it described that way and nothing in the rubrics even infers that.
It’s a fairly straightforward process… judges review notebooks and interview teams and ranks teams for the Design Award based solely on the design rubric. They also rank teams for other judged awards. They then look at on the field outcomes, , skills scores etc and select an Excellence Winner based on all those things. If the Excellence Winner was the also the top ranked Design Award team, and they often are, the next team in the Design Award list gets the Design Award. No consideration should be given to the team that had high skills or was the other team in the champion alliance etc. You simply go down the list of top 2 or 3 Design Award scores and pick the 2nd team.
(getting down off my soapbox 
)
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In our area, the design award is not treated as a second place excellence award. And it is not intended to be a second place excellence award. The design award only takes the Engineering notebook and interview into accout. The excellence award also considers performance. There should be no performace aspect considered in Design Award.
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Was that 2nd place team deserving of the design award? Maybe no other team was deserving of the award in the judges’ eyes, so, rather than not give out the awards, they gave them both to one team.
I’m not defending the judges’ actions, just trying to figure out what they were thinking. I’m sure the 2nd place team was deserving enough of the award. More likely than not the judges accidentally missed that part in the guide.
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In my over 10 years as an event partner, it has always been understood that a team can not win two judged awards at a single event. The Excellence Award is a JUDGED award as the judges decide who the award goes to based on several criteria of which robot performance is one. The Design Award, as stated above, is NOT the second place Excellence Award. It is based on the Engineering Notebook, which chronicles the teams Engineering DESIGN process and the determination of the Design Award winner might also include information gained by the Design Judges interviewing the top 5-10 candidates, particularly if the top 5-10 notebooks are very close in quality.
If the Excellence Award winner would have been the Design Award winner, then the Design Award should then go to the next highest rated team for the Design Award. When I have served as Judge’s Coordinator, we would determine the Excellence Award winner first. That team would then be removed from the lists of any other judged awards. We would then move down the awards, Design next, and so on. Each time an award winner was chosen, that team would be removed from consideration from any remaining judged awards,
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As someone who has served as a Judge’s Coordinator and an Event Partner (for many years), if there was no other team deserving of the Design Award, I just would not give a Design Award rather than give both awards to one team. Just my two cents. The Judges clearly missed or were never asked to read the Judge’s Guide.
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Okay so if I was that 2nd place Design Award team, I would be furious. Excellence is the highest award that you can receive at a competition. Design is the second highest. It’s essentially, you’re notebook is awesome, but your performance was okay. I don’t think that you’ll lose your award in this case. But I feel like that team should’ve got that award. Excellence means that you met the notebook/interview requirements AND you did well in the tournament, therefore qualifying you for a different award than the Design award. Not saying that you aren’t deserving of it, but imagine the other team’s perspective. How did the judges explain why you got both?
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