Now please read the whole post before you go and start saying no. Thank you.
Hello inter-webs, I am posting on behalf of my team. We are all freshmen and started to notice something a few meets back. We noticed that Excellence Awards seemed to be going to the same teams, even to the Tournament Champions. I don’t know if this is really very equal. Because if you win the Championship at a meet of 24+ teams (which is normal here) and then also get the Excellence Award, you’re just taking someone else’s chance of going to Worlds. Could it be possible next year to have a list of teams that can’t receive the Excellence Award because they’ve already won it that year? So say if you get the award at your first meet of the year, you can’t get it at a meet 5 weeks later. It would help make things more of an even playing field, especially for the teams who make the greatest strides under pressure towards the end of the season.
You should probably check out the numerous arguments experienced members have made on the this subject.
I’d say the biggest counter to your argument is probably the idea the the World Championship is supposed to be the most elite of teams. If a certain team wins the tournament, they are probably also deserving of the Excellence Award and would be very strong contenders for the World Championship. Why then have the Excellence Award go to someone else just to qualify more people? Shouldn’t those that most deserve the awards receive them?
Another big thing is that the World Championship is becoming larger and larger as VEX grows larger and larger around the world. VEX is going to great measures to limit the qualification criteria so that everyone has a fair chance.
However VEX is also a learning experience which is an argument that supports your claim. VEX is trying to foster educational growth, in which case having more people qualify is justified in that the World Championship is a great motivator to perform at an even higher level and learn even more from the great competition that is present.
I hope this gives you a bit more understanding as to the depth of this issue. If you have more opinions I’d highly suggest you add on to the thread that is already ongoing.
I understand your point. But what if another team puts in the same amount of effort, works just as hard, doesn’t make it to finals only after having 2 extra rounds against their opponent and STILL don’t get it? I’ve seen it happen before. Sometimes there is a judge’s bias at play. In light of your point, why not just limit it to two awards then you can’t receive the award. Or maybe we just need to inform people that they can un-qualify themselves for awards at check-in as stated here:https://vexforum.com/t/declining-a-world-championship-qualifying-award/20728/1&highlight=Excellence+Award
Having listened to judges discussing Excellence at a few dozen tournaments I can categorically tell you that this is NOT true at all events. Before Eliminations the judges will have a list of candidates, but they rarely finalize their decision until later. I have had judges standing behind the Scorekeeper during the last match waiting to hand in their final choices until after they see the end of the tournament (something which gives Scorekeepers and Event Partners small stomach pains…).
Honestly, I was having the exact opposite opinion. I feel like teams who deserve the excellence award, yet have already been qualified, should not be restricted. In my region, they almost never give the excellence award to the same team twice in a season. This is very frustrating for us because we take pride in our robot, and the awards we win are representative of the quality of our robot. If we win one award, and then from then on are never allowed to win another award, what is that teaching the kids? That once you are good you don’t need to be recognized? I feel like this sends the wrong message to people, although i understand that people want to qualify through the excellence award.
you need to remember that it is the judges final call as to who gets the excellence award. we won 3 excellence awards between our 5 competitions and felt that we deserved another but did not get it. to say that the judges cannot pick the team that they feel deserves to win it is just not how it works. if they cant give it to the best team then why give it out at all?
yes this does happen sometimes, but the decision may be too close to call the winner until that point in the tournament. i see nothing wrong with seeing who wins head to head as the better team often wins. if they are better they should win the award. this probably should be how it works at all tournaments to avoid having undeserving teams win excellence awards.
if we only can win one excellence award per year, then what is the point in keeping a high level of competition throughout the year? the excellence award rewards hard work and dedication to quality teams and their robot.
'The same thing happened to me. I have noticed some times at competitions, the tournament champions NEVER get the excellence award because they want to give chances to other teams. I understand their logic, but I think that may the best team win. But I hold nothing against the judges that make this decision. Their should be no “rule” but instead may the best team get the excellence award
I feel this statement should probably be elaborated upon.
The Excellence Award is based on both robot performance and performance as a team in a number of judged categories. (The exact criteria are here) At many smaller competitions, the only other awards offered are the Judges Award or the Build Award or the Design Award. So in essence the judging at these tournaments should come down to whose robot performs the best and whom the judges are most impressed with during an interview. The latter part of this often comes down to having a well thought-out design process and having this process well documented in an engineering notebook. It happens to be that it is often the team with the best robot at smaller competitions who wins the Excellence Award, however it does depend on other factors and judges’ impressions and therefore, on many occasions the winning team does not win the Excellence Award.
How the award criteria are interpreted does vary by region as some judges care more about the team aspect while others care more about the robot itself. My team makes sure to maintain strong teamwork, a comprehensive engineering notebook, and a well-performing robot to remain a contender in all categories and because teamwork and an engineering notebook are essential in building a good robot.
Just my two cents. Again, judging does have a rather large variance from competition to competition.
I am sorry about the confusion. I understand that the excellence is given to the best overall TEAM. (robot, design process, teamwork, etc.) I should have put may the best team get the excellence award.
I’m writing this post for two reasons. The first is that I believe in transparency in the Judging process. The second is to try and dispel a few of the myths I’ve seen in the past few judging threads.
Our mission is to provide the best experience throughout the season for the students, and that means seeing that they are rewarded for all of the awesome work they do. In order to do that, we do take previous award winners into consideration. 90% of the time that is not a factor in our decisions, but when it is, we always are sure to award it to the most deserving team.
That being said, the issue of world qualification slots comes up. We try to spread out those slots as best we can to the most deserving team at the event. We do not double qualify teams here, but we always make sure that we reward teams that deserve to be.
There are a few reasons behind that aspect of the judging process. First is that teams do work hard all season, and we want to reward that as best we can. This keeps the students inspired and energized. It also shows the school districts that all the money they are putting into the program is being put to good use.
Aside from all of that, judging in this area is pretty much by the book. We offer a standard set of awards at each event, have at least one experienced judge in each judging group, and use a custom made rubric in order to be as consistent as possible. The excellence award rubric in the awards section of the manual works very well 95% of the time. It takes field performance and judging into consideration, allowing the excellence award to go to the overall best team at the event, not necessarily the best robot.
That being said, the content of this post I would imagine applies to many competitions around the world. There may be some variance because RECF does allow judges a lot of freedom in their individual processes. Just remember that judging is a subjective process designed with the same intent of this program, to inspire and encourage students to love engineering.
Also, it should go to people who deserve it. Its called the overall highest award in VEX for a reason. It should not be given to a random team that just hasnt qualified yet.
Ok wait. I think this mightve come across wrong. I do apologize to anyone who took it the wrong way. I would like to stress that I do NOT mean that this actually happens. I am just offering an example of why I think there should be no awards regulation.
I would like to put in my two cents on this topic.
I believe that a team repeating excellence improves the overall quality of the pool of teams at Worlds. Without stepping on anyone’s toes, it was kind of disappointing to see the quality of some teams at world’s last year. I have to wonder how many of those teams qualified from an excellence award.
If a team were only able to win one excellence award per season, that would mean that other, sometimes lesser teams may qualify. Not that others qualifying is bad, but I think that one team repeating excellence multiple times in a season is good for the quality of competition later on.
Take a minute and consider the possibility that there is more to be gained from participating in the VEX Robotics Competition and in attending World Championship that winning a series of matches. The competition is NOT our goal, it is one of the methods we use to achieve our goal. There are other methods, too, like the individual inspiration students get from attending a big international engineering event.
Rick, I definitely understand that competition is not the main goal of VEX, but it is a part of it. From a competition standpoint, limiting awards for one team seems like an issue to me.
I am not saying that other teams do not deserve specific awards, my team was in the same position this year. We probably would have one an Excellence award if it were not for a specific team who pretty much swept it every tournament. I accepted this point because they deserved the award over us, and I would not want to receive it and qualify because they could not continue to win it.
I fully understand that VEX is not just about competition, wins and losses, or awards, but that is my opinion as far as the Excellence goes.
If there is anything else you would like to comment on, please let me know.
