Competition Judging Overview

This article explains judging at a VEX Robotics Competition event. It is written for judges, including anyone considering judging for the first time.

Definitions of the key terms used throughout are maintained in the central glossary.

VEX Robotics Competitions are educational programs where teams of students design, build, and code robots, then compete with them over a season. At competition events, teams compete in matches, working collaboratively to score points on the competition field. A robot's performance in a game is only one component of competition — teams also work hard throughout the season and document their learning diligently. Judged awards exist so that the full range of student achievement is recognized at competition events, not just competitive results.

You do not need robotics or engineering experience to be a judge. Judges bring attention, fairness, and a genuine interest in student learning to events. As a judge, you will have the opportunity to interview students, learn about their projects and processes, hear about their successes and failures firsthand, and award teams recognition for their efforts on and off the field.

The Commitments

Everyone who takes part in the VEX Robotics Competitions — students, coaches, volunteers, and judges alike — keeps the six Commitments of the Code of Conduct: Safety, Respect, Learning, Integrity, Fairness, and Reporting. Three of them shape judging directly:

• Learning. Students grow most when they own the work. Adults teach, advise, and support, but the work belongs to the students — and judging evaluates and celebrates the students' work. The Student-Centered Policy sets out this standard in full.
• Integrity. Teams demonstrate that their work is their own and keep their records and documents truthful. Judges help ensure that teams are competing with integrity, while also modeling integrity for students in the ways they interact with teams and give awards.
• Fairness. The rules bind the people who enforce them as much as the people who compete. Judges evaluate impartially, keep deliberations confidential, step back from decisions where they have a conflict of interest, and use the same published criteria for every team.

What Judges Look At

What judges look and listen for comes down to two principles from the Student-Centered Policy: students do the work, and students can explain the work. A team that did its own work can tell you what it tried, what it changed, and why. 

Judging centers on two main activities, both guided by published rubrics: evaluating Engineering Notebooks and conducting Team Interviews. 

• Evaluating Engineering Notebooks: Teams submit an Engineering Notebook, the team's own record of what it tried, decided, changed, and learned. Alongside the notebook, teams also submit brief summaries of their season's work, which give judges a starting point and highlight specific areas or stories they wish to tell. The notebook is the judge's reference material for interviews and team interactions.
• Conducting Team Interviews: Judges meet each team for a short interview, where students explain their robot, their code, and their season in their own words. Judges read a team's summary before the interview and can use it to open the conversation. Sample interview questions are provided in the rubric to help keep the conversation flowing.

Rubric scores from each activity support judges' deliberations, where judges decide on event award winners together.

You can learn more about each part of this process, including the rubrics, the summaries, how interviews run, and how deliberations work, in the Global Robotics and Science Foundation Library, beginning with the articles listed below.

Judging Resources

Begin with these articles to learn more about judging at an event. 

Additional support for judges can be found in the Global Robotics and Science Foundation Library.