How to win the Design Award at Worlds?

VEX V5 General Discussion
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To start, I want to mention that this is both my school’s and my first year participating in the VEX competition. Despite this, I was able to win the Design Award at both the qualification and regional levels. I requested feedback on my notebook but was unable to receive it.

So, I come here to ask—how can I prepare to have even a slim chance of winning the Design Award at Worlds? I am following the rubric closely, but I want to know how to make my submission stand out. My school does not provide funding, so we haven’t been able to construct an especially unique or advanced design. However, our robot is capable of scoring a significant number of rings. I currently have a 120-page engineering notebook and want to refine it for the competition.

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500 page engineering note book but precise

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Me and my team have never won a Design award at Worlds, but we have won two design awards both at league and a local tournament. I’m no professional, but I would recommend writing or putting something in your notebook that really stands out. Something that the judges will remember, and say, “Remember that one team’s notebook?” Just think out of the box, things you haven’t seen done before. You could add color, (if you haven’t already) and just keep thinking of ideas. For me, adding lift the flaps to pull up really gives it that immersive feel. And don’t forget, team collaboration is key. Make sure you have others writing in the notebook as well, not just one person; judges love to see teamwork. But, again, this is just my advice. Since you seem to be working well with your notebook with your awards, I say keep going with whatever you are doing too.

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I haven’t won design at worlds either, but we won Excellence at our state competition and I believe we were at least considered for design at worlds–granted this was in IQ but it is the same for V5 just more competitive.

  1. Don’t worry about pages. It’s easy to get intimidated by 500+ page notebooks but believe me if the judges are any good (which they should be at worlds) the size is nothing more than an afterthought regarding actual judging.

I’d say bulking up is not at all a bad thing, though. Just never, never worry about it that much. Having a 100 page notebook with precise, important information that is properly organized is WORLDS (no pun intended) better than a 2000 page notebook that is just pictures and useless, irrelevant information. So, do try to avoid putting in random memes and jokes. It’s just not that professional.

  1. Create a mindset that will improve your notebook and interview. Design is much more than a notebook or a 20 minute rant session about your robot. The judges want to see the right attitude. They want to see a precise, thought out design (not having money will, in some ways, help you with the design award IF you can prove that you’re using what you do have the best you know how). This is only possible with the right mindset.

Show your and your team mates’ dedication to the project. Use precise words that have purpose rather than just being fancy. Be respectful to the judges. Shake their hand. Be and look attentive when they speak to you. Smile (if you can). Stand up when they come to your table. Ask them how their day has been. You have as much of an obligation to be kind and respectful as they do to you. Don’t just be respectful to get the design award, lol.

  1. Organize, organize, organize. Do whatever it takes to gather information that’s important to your team and the contemporary game (like how you designed your robot and all the ideas that worked and failed) and find ways to organize that information that’s innovative, but also practical and easy to read. This is why I always create separate timelines in my notebook.

Utilize first, second, third (and so on) headings. Use bold and italic, underline, etc. Just don’t overdo it. Color coding is fine, but avoid vibrant and distracting colors and use the color you do use sparingly.

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to qualify for design or excellence at worlds you must win excellence or design at a worlds qualifying event and you must have a good notebook and interview

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Make sure to add the design process. I would assume you already have it, considering you won the design award at your regional competition. If you want to expand on this, I would add labels or color coordinate things to make your notebook that much better. One example of what this could look like is to put in red your ideas/brainstorming, then orange on your designing and drawing (or cadding) of your ideas e.c.t. It would greatly help organization and readability.

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I would second what @PowerSupply-72837A said.

And, if you have been following the rubric and best documentation practices, then your notebook entries are already done and “signed” and shouldn’t be changing anyway.

You can add a summary of design evolution, final robot overview, and appendices with the well organized and commented code listings, joystick controls layout, wiring and pneumatics diagram, etc…

However, you shouldn’t be going for the maximum size of the notebook.

Almost everybody competing for awards at the Worlds level already have in their notebooks everything that rubric calls for. And, at this point, judges will actually look for the most clean and concise notebooks, that have all important pieces of information, while minimizing fluff and clutter.

Also, notebook is just a part of your score that goes into deciding the award. Your pit interview and presentation is extremely important.

You should be able to demonstrate to judges that you are not just randomly coping into your robot bits and pieces you’ve seen on the other robots at the competitions, but are following robust iterative design process.

First, formulating the strategy and goals based on game rules, choosing appropriate robot design, and then observing performance of yours and other robots at the competitions to refine your strategy and design over several iterations.

If judges ask question about your game strategy or point to a specific part of your robot you should be able to explain how it evolved as to be that way as a result of constant testing and refinement, backed up by notebook entries with alternative solutions you considered and rejected or tested, liked, and took time to improve. A small poster or folder outlining design evolution of your robot may help, but don’t go overboard on that.

You should practice this interview/presentation multiple times in front of your parents, teacher, and in front of the camera to record and watch yourself later.

You will need to be ready to present a short (~5 min) or (~10 min) pit interview version as well as longer (~15 min + Q&A) version in case of the second follow up interview.

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