What are some of the questions that judges ask you? I am probably going to do a mock judging meeting for my team before our first competition. I will ask them all about the team and robot, but I’m wondering what some of the questions are.
Thanks!
I remember there’s a manual for judges…
Some examples would be like
how does your robot function?
what is your favorite part of the robot?
what gives your robot the edge in competition?
did you use a computer aided design program?
What was your design process like?
what difficulties did you face while building the robot?
did any robots inspire your team and if so who?
if you were given more time, what else would you do on the robot?
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Even if you can’t find an exact list of questions, make sure everyone knows how the robot works and is ready to explain everyone’s role on the team in construction, programming, and driving. Be ready to drive for the judges to show off the cool features, and let every person talk about whatever they worked on and can explain.
My best advice is to not prepare for every question, because every panel will have what it focuses on depending on who runs it; instead, make sure everyone thinks before talking, knows what they’re talking about, and clearly answers whatever questions come up. Judges usually ask if there is anything else the team wants to mention at the end, so make a mental list of anything special about the team and make sure they hear everything important.
I know it’s challenging and can easily make you nervous, but it’s important to learn how to do. It’s your chance to talk about and show off your robot, so enjoy it!
It is crucial that everyone on the team can confidently speak about the robot. It looks bad if there are members who say nothing during the entire interview, so make sure every member knows about the different components of the robot.
Make sure to talk about the design process of the robot, you though processes,how you collaborated. Show some CAD drawings or engineering notebook drawings to go with it. If they ask, make sure to mention your club’s community outreach
most of the questions I have got were…
why did you go with this design?
what are some unique features you have?
how many objects can it hold?
whats your autonomous look like?
whats your job on the team?
what jobs are offered on your team?
how long did it take you to be where you are today?
there is a whole mess of questions. every tournament and region is different. just answer the questions honestly and bring some objects when being judged so that you can give a demonstration. judges love demonstrations. also, stay relaxed and dont talk too technical. you dont want to bore them, give them a handout or two and crack a few jokes along the way. you will do fine.
Thank you all!
You’ve helped out a ton!
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My suggestion is to have fun and relax in your team interviews. My team has a script and all but it is quite vague and mainly focusing on hitting the important things in the robot and design method.
We like to have some fun, get everyone to laugh, and get the judges excited to come back and talk to us.
Our team goes around the state to compete and most of the judges are the same and they just come up to talk to us about new things we come up with and designed because they just like are have fun and compete attitude.
Main thing is run down your essentials while getting the judges excited about revisting your pit where you can really get into the why you did stuff instead us just giving them the what you did in a very descriptive, scripted, and plain interview.
I completely agree and can speak from experience to confirm the second quote. A lot of the Southern California judges volunteer at multiple tournaments, and many of them volunteered at worlds last year. They really are nice people, and they want you to have a good interview. They are excited to hear about everything you’ve done. Whether you are in a judging room or the judges approach your pit, take a deep breath, and think of it as a conversation. Good luck!
Last year on my old team we had a basic run-through. We had 4 people and are preparation went something like this: Ok X talks about drive, Y talks about the lift, Z talks about the intake, and A talks about the Sensory/electrical systems. Everybody: Good grammar, english. DO NOT SAY “UM”!!. Be relaxed, don’t talk over one another.
We got a perfect score on all of our interviews.
For the past two years I’ve given workshops locally on “Warm Up to Judging at World Championship.” I’ve been in a lot of judging rooms over the years and have seen many “best practices.”
Practice sessions re: judging should be part of every team. These are the same skills used to interview for college, internships and jobs, and you have a unique opportunity to actually use these skills at competitions.
Make sure you know whether the event has a scheduled interview presentation time or whether judging is done via visits to the pits. These two styles of picking award winners are very different.
For the judged awards, it’s not just about how good your robot is, it’s about how good your team is. Look over the list of trophies being given out for the event and the definition of those awards. Give some thought to which ones your team would actually be in the running for and be prepared to tell the judges why. They will only have a few minutes to spend with your team.
If it is a scheduled interview, best to practice the entire prepared presentation, keeping within the allotted time.
If judging is done by interviews in pits, you also need to prepare. Make the most of the time allotted. Stand up, give rid of the gum, offer to shake hands, and quickly tell the judges your role on the team. Speak up.
If the event is awarding the DESIGN award, be prepared to show your documentation/engineering notebook.
Practice speaking is short segments. Answer the question, but allowing time for follow-up questions.
Help the judges pick the most deserving team(s) for the awards. Many events give out a “JUDGES” trophy, which allows the judges lots of leeway for picking the team that deserves it for either technical or team quality.
Deliberations in the judges’ room is hard work because there are usually many more deserving teams than trophies. Be sure to thank the judges.