As noted in my earlier response, the Think Award was not always tied to code performance. The forum post I shared documents this history, including that in 2018, a team with 0 autonomous points won the Think Award and advanced to Worlds. The criteria were later updated to include a performance requirement — specifically, a non‑zero score beginning with the 2024–2025 season.
The Design Award is clearly understood to focus primarily on the engineering notebook and interview. There is no misunderstanding on that point. In the same way the Think Award operated without a performance baseline in 2018, this post is requesting consideration of a proposal to introduce a modest performance baseline for the Design Award.