Appendix A: RECF Inspire Judging Process
A.1 Overview
The processes in this appendix replace Sections 5, 6, and 8 (Judging Engineering Notebooks, Team Interviews, and Remote Judging) for RECF Inspire events. RECF Inspire is less dependent on chronological engineering notebooks, and instead gives students an opportunity to practice concise technical writing and formal presentation skills in a format that is more in alignment with other college activities.
A.2 RECF Inspire Engineering Documentation
A.2.1 Design Process Abstract / Summary
No more than 15 pages including:
- A cover page that includes team number, team & organization name, and names of team members.
- Documentation covering the following topics:
- Brief team composition / background
- Engineering design process
- Key developments and milestones
- Testing and research, including methods that did not work
- Results and findings
- Appendixes / figures / charts
- The design process abstract should be submitted by a deadline determined by the event partner and judge advisor, up to and including a submission the day of the event.
- Teams can maintain an engineering notebook as supplementary material to help formulate the design process abstract, but judges are not expected to read through it. The engineering notebook is not formally evaluated, and is not required for awards.
The purpose of this design process abstract is to give judges a background on the team and their design to supplement information shared in the team presentation. While the quality and completeness of this abstract can be considered qualitatively, it is not quantitatively scored.
A.2.2 Documentation of Custom Parts
This includes conception, fabrication, and all iterations through their current implementation. This can be done in the engineering notebook or some other form of documentation that includes dates of development and the names of students involved in that development. This is a separate document from the design process abstract. Teams may be asked to provide this documentation to robot inspectors and/or judges upon request.
A.3 RECF Inspire Team Presentation
Each team should prepare a design presentation of 10-15 minutes (standardized for each event and set by the judge advisor / event partner), which will be followed by a Q&A period with judges of no more than 10 minutes (also standardized for each event).
- This should cover the design process, including testing/debugging of any significant custom parts, robots’ functionality, coding, and systems engineering. Showing interim steps, failures, redesigns, etc., helps show the unique work of the team as they worked to create their robot designs.
- The team is responsible for procuring any A/V equipment or visual aids needed for their presentation. The event should provide a source of electricity and a table for teams to place props and robots, and may provide a TV and/or projector. Available equipment should be outlined in the event information posted on RECFEvents.org.
- Judges may do walk-throughs of pit and competition areas in order to inspect robots up close, ask follow-up questions, and gather additional information as needed for awards. This is a recommended time for judges with specific backgrounds (fabrication, computer science, etc.) to engage specific teams for more details regarding information presented in the initial interview. For example, showing and demonstrating programming for the Think Award.
A.4 RECF Inspire Rubrics and Criteria
The presentations and written design process abstracts for RECF Inspire are not scored with rubrics. Award descriptions should be used as the basis for determining which team is the best fit for each award. The Team Interview Notes sheet provides a way for judges to take notes on different aspects of the team’s interview.
Continue to the next section, Guide to Judging: Official Judging Resources