Last revised on August 20, 2025
Section 6: Team Interviews
Overview: Team Interviews are timed conversations between a team and a group of Judges, during which Judges ask open-ended questions to learn firsthand from the team about their Engineering Design Process. Teams that are finalists for awards may receive additional interviews as Judges seek additional information. Teams are typically interviewed in their pit areas or by competition fields.
<IN1> Initial Interview Process Overview
The Team Interview Rubric is used for all initial Team Interviews. Judges may use the Team Interview Tips and Sample Questions and Team Interview Notes to assist in interviews. Judges interview teams that have been assigned to them by the Judge Advisor. Teamwork, professionalism, interview quality, and team conduct are considered when nominating and ranking teams for all Judged Awards.
Initial Team Interviews are usually conducted in the team pit area. This allows Judges to observe teams at work and quickly move from team to team. Alternatively, initial Team Interviews may be conducted in a hallway or some other still-public place, such as a library room or cafeteria. This can be a quieter venue for interviews, but Judges must ensure that the interview format remains intact and does not become a prepared presentation. Keep in mind that a more private setting could come across as intimidating for some teams. Youth protection <JP8> should always be a priority when planning interview processes.
All teams at an event must have an opportunity to be interviewed at least once. A team may decline to be interviewed. That team will no longer be eligible for any Judged Award with the exception of Volunteer Nominated Awards if they are offered at the event.
Some teams may want to share parts of their Engineering Notebook during their interview. This is permissible, but may not be possible depending on how and when notebooks are collected. Teams should be prepared to answer the Judges’ questions without their notebook.
<IN2>Team Interview Scheduling
Initial Team Interviews can be conducted without notice to teams, or at a time of the team’s choosing (for example, schedules made via a signup sheet or a first-come-first-served queue). However, all teams at the event must have their initial interviews scheduled in the same way, and teams are not allowed to choose a particular set of Judges—just an interview time. A best practice for a self-service model to assign interviews is allocating teams to one of several groups of Judges based on a queuing method, with modifications in cases where conflicts of interest arise between a team and a Judge.
Some teams may be hard to find at an event; if they are not in their pit space, another approach may be to find them as they come off the field for their match.
<IN3> Judges Interview Students, not Adults
Judges should only talk to the student members of the team. Occasionally, enthusiastic adults may want to answer the Judges’ questions. If this happens, politely remind the adult(s) that the Judges are there to interview the students. The purpose of the interview is for the student team members to explain their design process and answer questions judges may have about their robot, programming, or Engineering Design process.
<IN4> Interview Questions
Some Judge Advisors create a standardized list of questions for Judges to ask that are used for all interviews at that event. This can be particularly helpful to ensure that all aspects of the robot and competition are addressed, or to assist inexperienced Judges with the interview process. This should not be construed as a rigid “script”; Judges should be free to ask follow-up questions based on student responses. Other events may not use common questions and instead allow judging teams to come up with their own styles of interview to gather information from teams.
<IN5> Follow Up Interviews for Award Nominees
Award finalists should be cross interviewed by multiple groups of Judges as a part of the deliberation process. The Judge Advisor will assign additional interviews as needed during the event. Follow-up interviews for any award contenders should be conducted without notice, preferably in the competition or pit areas. This allows Judges to see the team in their workspace and does not give any team an advantage via prior notice.
<IN6> Considerations for Cultural or Communication Style Differences
Students will have varying styles of interacting with Judges during the interview process based on individual or cultural differences. Maintaining eye contact, speaking in a loud enough voice to be easily heard, engaging with other speakers, and other engagement norms may differ between students. Judges should do their best to give all teams an opportunity to share their design process during the interview and should strive to not allow factors that are beyond students’ control to bias their evaluation of the team.
Judges should avoid using humor or language that could be interpreted as disparaging. For example, “I can’t believe you came up with this on your own!” might be intended as a compliment to the team but could be misinterpreted as the Judges believing the team is violating the Code of Conduct by claiming work that is not their own. Judges should be very careful with their language and avoid statements that could be misconstrued.
<IN7> Team Interview Process Step 1 – Conducting the Team Interview
- All teams should be interviewed for roughly the same amount of time. The Judge Advisor will create a schedule based on the number of teams and Judges at an event.
- A typical Team Interview lasts approximately 10-15 minutes, though some events may conduct interviews that are slightly shorter or longer than this range depending on the event schedule. Staying on schedule is important to ensure all teams are interviewed and there is sufficient time for Judges to conduct deliberations. Teams that need an interpreter to communicate with Judges may need more time, and should notify the Event Partner upon registration.
- In Team Interviews, Judges directly ask students open-ended questions about their robot and design process to give students an opportunity to share their design process, teamwork, and journey throughout the season. Follow-up questions are asked as needed.
- Teams can use their robot and its associated equipment, Engineering Notebook (if available), and code during the interview. However, Judges should engage with students and their robot and not with audio/visual aids such as presentations or displays.
- Judges should take notes using the Team Interview Notes form during interviews and observations to support their evaluations and assist with deliberations.
- Judges should consider taking a picture of each robot with the team number visible to help recall details about robot designs mentioned in their notes.
- If Judges are unable to locate a team’s pit area, they should contact the Judge Advisor for assistance. Catching the team as they leave the field from a match is often the best way to track a team down.
- Judges should remember that younger students communicate their ideas differently than older students. Judges should use age-appropriate language when asking questions and consider students’ ages when evaluating student responses.
- Judges can refer to the Judging Single Page Reference for brief award descriptions and other useful information.
<IN8> Team Interview Process Step 2 – Complete the Team Interview Rubric / Team Interview Evaluation
Important: The Team Interview Rubric is a tool for initial team interview evaluations through quantitative comparison. The final determination of all award candidates and winners are done through further qualitative deliberation among judges based on award descriptions and criteria. As such, a team earning a particular or overall score on a rubric is not an automatic disqualification or threshold for any Judged Award.
After each interview, Judges should complete the Team Interview Rubric for that team. Judges should go somewhere private to discuss and collaboratively fill out the rubric and/or compile notes, and should take care that their discussions are not overheard by any other party.
Judges should identify student-centered teams with positive, respectful, and ethical conduct during the team interviews and team observations. Conversely, they should also make note of any teams that are not demonstrating these principles, including teams that are not being directly interviewed.
<IN9> Team Interview Process Step 3 – Identify Initial Candidate Teams Within Judge Group
When Judged Awards beyond the Excellence, Design, Innovate, and Judges Awards are offered at an event, the Judge Advisor may provide the Initial Award Candidate Ranking Sheet for use along with the Team Interview Rubric. This form may also be useful when initial Team Interviews are conducted remotely (see section on Remote Judging) as a way to identify nominations from each judging group.
On the Initial Award Candidate Ranking Sheet, Judges will record the numbers of the teams they are assigned to interview on the left side and fill in any additional Judged Awards offered at the event. Awards should be listed according to precedence from left to right, with Qualifying Awards in the leftmost columns, followed by the non-qualifying awards. The precedence of Qualifying Awards is listed in the RECF Qualifying Criteria. Judges will then use the spaces provided to indicate a candidate for each additional Judged Award offered at the event. The end result is a short list of award candidates without rankings to differentiate them.
Another method is to rank candidates for awards as they are interviewed. As Judges interview teams, they may optionally want to use multiple stars or checks on the Initial Award Candidate Ranking Sheet to show rankings as teams are interviewed. This is done by adding check marks to rank teams. For example, if the first team interviewed received one check mark as a recommendation for an award and the second team interviewed would be a better candidate, the second team would receive one check mark and the first team would receive a second check mark, ranking them first and second, respectively. This continues until all teams are interviewed, and the end result is a ranking of teams. This same process can also take place after Judges have interviewed all teams, but ranking award candidates as they go may assist when many teams are being interviewed.
Below is an example of how this sheet might be filled out by one Judge group that is assigned a subset of teams at a larger event. In this example the Build, Create, Think, and Judges awards have been filled in below.
This is a simple way for Judges to preliminarily rank their recommendations as they go, with final rankings done after their set of interviews are completed. Additionally, Judges can make notes on the Team Interview Notes sheet.
Continue to the next section, Guide to Judging: Award Deliberations