Last revised on August 20, 2025
Section 1: Judging Principles
Overview: The following judging principles, when taken as a whole, outline an ethos that Judges, Judge Advisors, and Event Partners should follow. The judging role is a very important one that can make a tremendous impact on the students involved. The ability of all judging volunteers to interact with students and fellow Judges rationally and respectfully is of the utmost importance. Volunteers who are unable or unwilling to abide by these principles should consider volunteering in other roles instead.
All judging volunteers should keep the following principles in mind.
<JP1> Confidentiality
The judging process includes discussions concerning teams as well as written notes and rubrics. These must remain confidential. Judges should take precautions to ensure that any discussions are not overheard by—or shared with—teams, other event participants, or event staff. Informing a team about their standing in award deliberations, rubric scores, or that they have been removed from consideration for Judged Awards due to Code of Conduct concerns, is a violation of this principle.
Written judging materials, including Judges’ notes, rubrics, and awards worksheets are to be given to the Judge Advisor after the event for disposal. Those with access to Engineering Notebooks are not to retain access after the event is over in any form, neither physical nor digital, nor retain photos taken for deliberation purposes at the event.
If the Judges notice a team or individual recording an interview or judging notes, either for their own interview or another team’s interview, they should pause the interview and ask the recording party to cease recording. If they refuse to do so, this should be brought up to the Event Partner as a Code of Conduct violation. Many people behave differently if they know they are being recorded, which can significantly alter the substance and character of the Team Interview.
This principle of confidentiality explicitly prohibits Judges from sharing specifics about what they saw, heard, read, discussed, or otherwise observed from judging at an event. This includes giving teams specific feedback on their interview or notebook. This is to protect Judge volunteers as well as teams. Sharing specifics of what occurs in the judging process leads to a breakdown of candor among Judge volunteers, as they are not able to speak their mind freely in the judging room if what they say can be shared outside of judging. Sharing information can lead to misunderstandings with teams—even well intentioned feedback can be misinterpreted or taken poorly or out of context.
It is recommended that teams who desire a critique of their work self-evaluate, or ask a trusted adult to assist them outside of the competition space in going through a notebook or interview evaluation. Coaches and team members should not attempt to solicit feedback from Judge volunteers during or after the event. Repeated attempts to do so may result in a Code of Conduct violation.
Note: RECF staff must be provided access to any information pertaining to the event and its processes, including Judging. Such requests do not violate the confidentiality principle. Similarly, Judge Advisors are still expected to submit information to the RECF Rules and Conduct Committee as part of the Code of Conduct process.
<JP2> Impartiality
Teams at an event should be judged on their merits and behavior at that event only. Judges should take care to be aware of any biases they may have and avoid allowing those biases to influence their ability to impartially judge teams. Judges should strive to be impartial and fact-based.
Conflicts of interest occur when there is a relationship between a judging volunteer and one or more teams or organizations at the event. Additionally, that relationship could create—or appear to create—a situation where teams will not be judged fairly, and that discussions during award deliberations will not be impartial.
If a Judge has conflicts of interest, it is their responsibility to declare those conflicts to the Event Partner and Judge Advisor before the judging process begins. They must mindfully avoid advocating for or against the teams with which they have a relationship, and must not participate directly in the judging process for those teams, such as participating in Team Interviews or Engineering Notebook evaluations. Deliberately concealing a conflict of interest could be grounds for a Code of Conduct violation and/or dismissal of a volunteer.
All volunteers involved in judging should take care to remove any outward appearances of conflicts of interest, including team shirts, buttons, or branded items that would appear to favor any team at the event.
<JP3> Consistency
Engineering Notebooks and Team Interviews must be evaluated under similar conditions. This allows for a more consistent evaluation of each team. This applies to in-person judging at an event and judging for an event that includes remote and in-person evaluation of Engineering Notebooks and/or interviews.
Evaluating some Engineering Notebooks remotely ahead of an event and evaluating others in-person at the event, or allowing some team interviews to last 30 minutes and while others are only 10 minutes long would both be considered violations of this principle. These examples do not provide a consistent judging experience for all teams at the event, and may give some teams advantages over others in the judging process.
<JP4> Qualitative Judgement
Judges are expected to apply qualitative judgment to award criteria when making final decisions on all Judged Awards. As such, a particular or overall score on a rubric is not an automatic disqualification for any Judged Award, and the highest rubric score does not necessarily determine the winner of an award. For example, while completing the Engineering Notebook Rubric results in a quantitative score, Judges must still deliberate and apply qualitative judgement when ranking teams to determine the Design Award winner.
<JP5> Opportunity
Only a limited number of teams at an event will earn a Judged Award. However, every team at an event must be given an equal opportunity to be interviewed by Judges even if they have not turned in an Engineering Notebook to be evaluated. A team that elects to not participate in judging by declining to be interviewed is not impacted by this decision in any other part of the competition. It is not acceptable for the Event Partner or Judge Advisor to elect to not interview a team.
<JP6> Balance
No team shall be awarded more than one Judged Award at an event. Performance Awards (such as Tournament Champion), awards determined solely by volunteer nomination (such as the Sportsmanship and Energy awards), or awards presented to an individual (such as the Volunteer of the Year Award) do not affect a team’s eligibility to earn a Judged Award. Many awards have overlapping criteria—the intent of this principle is to ensure that a number of different teams should be considered for judged awards at an event.
<JP7> Integrity
Each award should go to the team which best exemplifies the award description and meets the requirements of the award, while still adhering to the principle of balance by not awarding more than one Judged Award per team. Judged Awards should not be reallocated based on Performance Awards or awards earned by a team at a past event. If no team at the event meets the criteria for an award, that award should not be given out.
The intent of this principle is to prohibit negotiations in which Judges trade support for specific teams to earn specific awards, allow personal or professional politics or ideologies to factor into judging decisions, or otherwise allow for biases to influence the judging process.
<JP8> Youth Protection
Judges must be mindful of student safety. Each Judge should work with at least one other Judge in a public space such as a pit area. No meetings should take place in a private space unless the team is accompanied by a responsible adult, such as a coach, mentor, or parent. Judges should avoid asking students personal questions that do not relate to the team, event, or robot. Judges should be mindful of the language they use, and avoid saying things that could be misinterpreted by students on a team.
Some students will be highly motivated and comfortable when speaking with Judges, while others may be more reticent. Judges should make every effort to make the judging experience as pleasant and positive as possible so that the students involved feel as comfortable as possible and have a positive judging experience.
<JP9> Student-Centered Teams
Teams who earn Judged Awards must be student-centered, which means that students have ownership of how their robot is designed, built, programmed, and utilized in match play with other teams and in robot skills matches. Through observation, interviews with teams, and input from event staff, Judges identify teams that are student-centered and give greater consideration to teams that favor the enhancement of student learning over teams that favor winning at any cost by violating RECF policies. Teams that are not student-centered should not receive Judged Awards. Additional information and guidance on student-centered teams can be found in the RECF Student-Centered Policy.
<JP10> Independent Inquiry
Independent inquiry is a part of the student-centered experience. An important educational aspect of RECF programs is the opportunity for students to explore, experiment, and discover by asking their own questions and seeking answers using the Engineering Design Process. It is expected that all aspects of the Engineering Design Process which are documented and/or implemented are student-directed, whether teams take inspiration from existing designs or ideas or come up with an entirely original design or strategy. Independent inquiry means students are learning how and why things work, rather than accepting another source’s results or solutions without question.
Judging should reward teams that show evidence of their own work in their Engineering Notebook, Team Interview, and robot design. A team’s journey throughout the season is one of education, learning through experience, and discovery. It is not a race to see who can create the highest scoring robot, bereft of originality or educative substance.
<JP11> Team Ethics and Conduct
The RECF considers the positive, respectful, and ethical conduct of teams to be an essential component of the competition. A team includes the students, teachers, coaches, mentors, parents, and anyone else associated with the team. All participants are expected to act with integrity, honesty, and reliability and operate as student-centered teams with limited adult assistance. Judges will consider all team conduct when determining Judged Awards. This is covered in greater detail by the RECF Code of Conduct and Student-Centered Policy. Teams who do not act in a manner which is in alignment with the RECF Code of Conduct and Student-Centered Policy should not be considered for Judged Awards. The Judge Advisor should discuss with Head Referees and other key volunteers any team behaviors that might impact judging, both positive and negative. Often, on-field staff witness behaviors that Judges may not observe. The Field Note to Judge Advisor is a tool designed for this purpose. Typically, any behavior that is award affecting should also be reported to the Event Partner as a Code of Conduct violation by the appropriate volunteer.
Continue to the next section, Guide to Judging: Judging Roles