Should the RECF consider adding a modest criterion for the Design Award when it qualifies a team for Worlds—such as requiring teams to be in the top X% in Skills—to help ensure the robot design demonstrates the ability to solve the game challenge beyond what’s documented in the notebook and shared in the interview?
A few years ago, a similar update was made to the Think Award, which began requiring a non-zero score.
I looked at the completed ES and MS championships, and in two of them the Design Award winners advancing to Worlds had Skills scores lower than a 3-colored stack. Shouldn’t the Design Award criteria also reflect a robot design that can meaningfully address the game challenge?
With Skills scores of 4 or 10, there’s a strong chance the robot isn’t able to mix and match pins to form a stack, which raises a fair question about how effectively the design translates from the notebook and interview to on-field performance.
Championship
Design
Skill Score (Championship)
Highest Skill Score
Design Award World Qualifier
NH/VT 2026 VEX IQ Mix and Match Middle School State Championship
603E
88
93
Texas VEX IQ Middle School School Region 3 Championship
3030A
255
255
X
2026 Oregon VEX IQ Middle School Regional Championship
30394A
50
50
Iowa VIQRC MS State Championship
2501Z
39
53
2026 CT VEX IQ Championship
55508C
61
64
X
2026 Oregon VEX IQ Middle School Regional Championship
30394A
50
50
Forsyth Conference Championship VEX IQ Robotics Competition MS
71843A
10
26
X
Cabarrus County VEX IQ Middle School Conference Championship
40586C
60
60
Mississippi VEX IQ Robotics Competition State Championship MS
2035A
90
90
X
2026 Louisiana Middle School VEX IQ Robotics State Championship
21555C
159
159
2026 NV MIDDLE SCHOOL State Championship for Mix & Match
11110A
140
140
X
Alabama VEX IQ Robotics Competition Event Region Championship
25425A
283
313
X
Texas Region 2 State Championship
36238A
122
149
X
2026 SC VEX IQ Robotics Competition MS State Championship
16885A
270
270
Nebraska VIQRC Middle School State Championship @ SAC Museum
985B
78
78
2026 TN Middle VEX IQ Robotics State Championship
24250P
419
419
X
Massachusetts VEX IQ State Championships
1715X
262
262
Georgia VEX IQ Robotics Competition State Championship MS
240A
219
219
X
Eastern PA State Championship VEX IQ Challenge Mix & Match
46000A
325
343
2026 Utah Mix & Match Middle School State Championship
54567A
145
145
X
2026 Maryland VEX IQ Robotics Competition (MS) State Championship
952E
4
8
X
2026 Texas Region 1 VEX IQ MS State Championship
45009F
9
28
Wyoming State VEX IQ Robotics Competition Championship
40693P
87
87
2026 New Mexico VEX IQ State Championship
58312F
67
67
DelMarVa Regional IQ Championship (Middle School)
6039K
120
120
2026 Northern CA VEX IQ Regional Championship MS
5567A
225
225
X
North Dakota 2026 VEX IQ Middle School State Championship
94605A
285
285
2026 LAUSD VIQRC Middle School Conference Championship
11108B
168
168
X
North / Central Florida VIQRC MS Regional Event Championship
3722H
207
218
X
2026 Washington VEX IQ Middle School Regional Championship
47S
141
141
X
2026 Ohio VIQRC State Championship - Middle School
2281B
149
149
X
Northern NY State VEX IQ Mix and Match MS Hybrid Championship
11471G
125
125
X
2026 Kansas VEX IQ MS State Championship
84732A
100
117
Idaho VEX IQ Robotics Competition State Championship
390C
21
48
2025-2026 Oklahoma VIQRC Middle School Robotics Championship
11064A
130
137
X
MN VEX IQ State Championship - MS
1502B
50
58
2026 Texas Region 4 Middle School VEX IQ State Championship
1916A
131
131
X
2026 DC VEX IQ Robotics Competition State Championship (ES/MS)
17760H
243
250
Michigan VIQRC Middle School State Championship
10452Y
208
238
X
2026 Wisconsin VEX IQ MS State Championship
10851F
112
112
X
South Florida MIddle School Event Region VIQRC Championship
6441B
339
339
X
Missouri VIQRC MS State Championship - 2026 Mix and Match
243C
97
97
North Carolina VEX IQ Robotics Competition State Championship
27540D
138
138
Arkansas 2025-2026 State Middle School Championship
13952C
117
117
X
2026 Texas Region 6 IQ Regional State Championship
2026 Western Pennsylvania VIQRC Middle School Championship
I’ve never quite understood how there are no performance criteria whatsoever for things like Design and Innovate. If it’s innovative and well documented but literally is terrible at playing the game, you’re still good for Innovate and Design.
I guess the main defense would be that judges just aren’t good at judging performance outside of looking at scores for skills/teamwork, but there have been some… let’s say “puzzling” choices for the Design award in our region in some prior years.
Here’s my take on this topic as a student (and notebooker):
If a team that received the Design Award didn’t do very well performance wise, well, that’s still part of the design process.
Less competitive teams that win the Design Award often improve later season—even if not to competitive standards. Since the Design Award is mainly about a well-developed design process demonstrated by the team, performance shouldn’t really matter; it’s the process that the teams are going through and able to explain that counts.
I mainly agree, as no matter how innovative or well documented something is, it doesn’t matter if it performs poorly. I think performance should be put as a consideration, but more importantly I think judges should try to watch a few matches of top contenders, especially at states/worlds/sigs, so they can see if the innovative factor actually is used, if a team has a cool double park but that double park isnt even used and the team performs well, they shouldn’t be as high on the list. I think notebook/documentation/innovation/interviews should still remain the main factors to help facilitate creative designs, but performance should be considered to see if that innovation and design actually has practical use, as if the purpose of vex is to prepare students for the workforce, something that is very well documented but is not very useful still isnt sucessful.
I agree, I think that is why we have excellence, along with think, build, and amaze. I have won design being ranked low twice and while I was surprised, I can attest to the fact that someone those who do well might not have the best design (and process/documentation) and those who don’t do well also don’t necessarily have bad robots. I think the award is as intended. I would also not that the % for excellence has also decreased over the years too. I just don’t think we need more performance based awards, especially given that skills qualification to world basically makes up for this in a way.
I agree. Considering that the Design Award sits directly behind Excellence and Teamwork Champion in the World Championship qualification order, it carries significant weight. With that priority, one would expect at least a minimal performance benchmark. When a team advances to Worlds with a Skills score below a three-colored stack, it’s fair to ask whether other teams in the state may have been more deserving.
When a team focuses heavily on the notebook and interview but their robot cannot meaningfully contribute during the teamwork challenge, it can give the impression that the strategy is to target judged awards rather than solve the game challenge. Without some form of performance metric, it leaves room for teams to game the system.
My take: teams can have bad luck with qual schedules or even skills. With innovate I think there should be judges watching skills and quals, at least 3 per team, to see if the team actually uses thier innovative feature. For design I think there shouldnt be requirements. If a team had really bad luck in quals and skills. (I coded 50 point auton skills(v5) and it missed at state due to IMU miscalibration and one setup error, so I got one real run), and we all know qual schedule luck can severely impact a teams ranking, design should be the award that teams can still get, even if everything else goes poorly at the event.
If no performance metrics are required, a situation can arise where a team earns zero points in Skills, zero points in Autonomous, and finishes last in qualification rankings and yet still qualifies for the design award solely on the strength of its engineering notebook and interview. Under the current criteria, this outcome is technically possible.
There is an important distinction between a team that experiences a poor competitive showing and a team that deprioritizes robot performance altogether in favor of optimizing only for judged criteria. Without any performance threshold, the incentive shifts away from building, iterating, and executing a functional robot.
The proposal is not to impose a high performance bar. This is not a request for top 40% rankings or elite scoring levels associated with awards like Excellence or Amaze. Rather, it is to establish a minimal, quantifiable baseline such as non‑zero performance in skills and autonomous to demonstrate that the team made a meaningful effort throughout the season to design, iterate, and operate a working robot.
Even a very low performance requirement would serve as an objective signal that the documented design was not only well articulated, but also implemented and validated through execution.
I’d even be open to the idea that it’s not even about performance at the event.
If a team have done skills runs in practice and documented them and they are doing well an improving and then they drop their robot on the way into the competition and it doesn’t work the same that day, then I wouldn’t want them to be disqualified from all awards.
But if you heavily document your two beams/c-channels and a screw, there’s really nothing in the awards description that indicates any effectiveness ideas should even be taken into consideration.
This is actually a good idea. Teams should document practice runs, and if there is evidence that a team can hit for this season v5(40+ driver and 20+ auto) that should be enough. Teams should be able to proven they can achieve those scores, proving their robot is effective, but if everything goes badly at the competition, it shouldn’t disqualify them from judged awarss
Ooh yes! Some ideas and questions (and I’m really enjoying this XD):
What would be the minimum score? How could that be decided upon, especially given competitive differences in regions and whatnot.
Instead of having a minimum score, what about minimum improvement? For example, teams have to submit a form (like for innovate) detailing their first skills run and their most recent. Then they have to show improvement by at least a certain number of points. IMO this prioritizes the EDP, which I think would align with the intended meaning of Design more.
The minimum score should be just above what a herobot could achieve. You could sample 100 random drivers at ms worlds (the game would already be out), give them a bit of practice, then take the average. It would respresent that a team has a robot that functions better than a hero bot, so they would have went through EDP to design said better robot
I think the specific criteria should ultimately be defined by RECF. It could be something announced at the start of the season when the new game is released. For example, in Mix and Match, it might be a minimum skills score of 30, which mathematically shows the robot can build at least a 3-color stack scored in a matching goal (28 points) and achieve a non-zero autonomous score (2 points).
That’s not a particularly high benchmark, and most ES and MS IQ teams that advanced to Worlds reached that level, aside from a few outliers. Another option could be requiring teams to fall within the top 75% of skills rankings with a non-zero autonomous score.
Without some baseline like this or the other ideas suggested in this thread, it creates an opening for teams to game the system by focusing solely on the two primary design award criteria (notebook and interview) while bringing a robot that contributes little on the field. In the Teamwork Challenge, that doesn’t just affect that one team, it also puts their alliance partner at a disadvantage when scoring potential is limited from the start.
Instead of just adding a performance requirement to Design, lets revamp the whole thing… Get rid of ALL awards (judged and performance) except Excellence and then just have a series of Excellence Awards, e.g. 1st Excellence, 2nd Excellence, etc. The ranking of Excellence wouid then be some weighted formula of skills, matches, notebook, interview and behavior on and off the field .
In this way, not only are we ensuring that those with good notebooks and interviews have capable robots, but we are ensuring that those with capable robots are producing equally high quality notebooks and interviews and that high performing robots went through a design process.
I’m not sure how OP produced the list that was presented, but I think it would be interesting to know how many teams going to Worlds on performance never got a single judged award .
I’m not opposed to aligning the Design Award with the second-place team in the Excellence Award ranking. However, I believe it’s still important to preserve awards such as Sportsmanship, Inspire, or the Judges Award, all of which fall under the judged award umbrella.
These awards play a meaningful role in recognizing the character, teamwork, and positive contributions that students bring to the program. For many young participants, being acknowledged for good sportsmanship, collaboration, or the way they support others can be just as impactful as competitive success. Celebrating these qualities helps build confidence, reinforces positive values, and encourages students to continue growing both as competitors and as individuals.
I can see your point. I guess I need to refine my hought… if the intent is that Awards that qualify for Worlds all meet some minimal performance threshold, then it seems they should all meet some minimal judging threshold.
Just as a team who’s robot can’t make a sufficiently high score shouldn’t go to Worlds, a team who’s notebook and interview isn’t Expert in most categories shouldn’t be going either.
Well now, I’m a little curious here, how the teams that didn’t make it to Worlds are feeling, knowing some design award teams with a skill score less than a 3 color stacks still get to mosey on up to Worlds.
And what about the teams in other states or countries sitting there with higher scores, but that design award don’t punch their ticket? Feels like that might leave a few folks raising their eye brows.