Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This is a very interesting step taken by FIRST.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I really really like this change.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I'm really excited for this change!

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This is a great change, the Chairman's presentation team's I've seen all work extremely hard on their presentations, there is no reason that their work shouldn't also be an iterative process throughout the competition season.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This was the right move.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This is a great idea, and definitely a logical thing to do.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Wow, this actually makes quite a lot of sense. So many issues are eliminated this way - teams not submitting to avoid losing to a perennial powerhouse, teams avoiding certain regionals that seem to give preference to local teams, etc. This way, if you're good enough to win, and you go to multiple events, you've got a great shot of winning. Best of all, you can actually incorporate the advice given by Chairman's judges into future presentations rather than waiting an entire year to act on suggestions. This should make the Championship Chairman's pool deeper and stronger all around as well.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This is an excellent update, it will help increase quality competition at regional events and decrease feelings that teams "picked the wrong regional to submit at that year". It looks like HQ put a lot of thought into this as they also recognized that they will need to increase the number of judges at regional events.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

It will also motivate teams to ask for clear, helpful, and insightful feedback from their judges. The judges will have to step up their game to match the higher expectations.

Great change. Good job FIRST.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Overall I'm very pleased with the change. My one question is as stated the change is "every event." Does this include third districts?

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This is going to lead to some serious friction during Week 6 events.

Teams trying to improve their Chairman's presentations and win the award (Either to be eligible for the Championship Chairman's Award, or just to qualify for worlds to begin with) will be very tense to win.

I can see this creating a great deal of disappointment for teams who bid for the award again in a late event, but fall short.

I'm on the fence with this. I like it since it means that teams won't have to decide what event they want to submit for, and that they can use the Judge's Evaluations they receive from their regional to improve. Not only does this help teams improve their presentations for the award, but it will be a valuable experience in learning about business presentations and speaking skills.

On the other hand, I don't like Chairman's Award being seen as an award that you can keep trying over and over for until you get it. I think that kind of devalues the award in the long run. When it's "One shot to win it all", I think teams appreciate the award overall much more. But now that we might be playing a game where teams pick events to allow them improve the most and better their chances of winning, I think this will make the award a little less prestigious. I don't think I really like the change.

Just a thought. Let's see how this goes first.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I think its more disappointing when your chairmans team works long and tirelessly year round only to have one shot and that's it. They and the team put a lot of time and effort into having only one chance. \

Its a good move by FIRST!

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Generally I see more positives than negatives, so it's a good change.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I'm alright with it.

The dynamics change a little bit—particularly with regard to choice of events, because there's now a bigger schedule-based component to the likelihood that a particular team will win the award at a particular regional.

Also, it's not clear whether a team can officially declare itself out of contention for a particular event, despite having a valid submission. (Telling the judges "take us out of contention" would probably suffice unofficially.) For example, a team might want to maintain a streak of several awards in a row at an event where they're expected to dominate, but the only workable schedule forces them to attend a preceding regional. (I don't think this is a particularly good idea, but I could see a team wanting to do it anyway.)

There's also the issue of judges estimating a team's probability to win at an upcoming event, and factoring that into their deliberations—the team that has the least chance of winning elsewhere might get a slight boost. (If this is objectionable, FIRST could simply state that this isn't a permissible judging criterion. Alternatively, maybe this is an equitable thing to do, despite the fact that it dilutes the idea that the award is won and lost based on the presentations at each event.)

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I think it does the exact opposite, actually. This actually helps advance the best Chairman's teams to the championship. In the past if you applied (and lost) at a "strong Chairman's regional" then you were done. At your second regional you could have probably beat any of the Chairman's Award competitors, but you couldn't apply at a second regional. Under the new system you now have a chance of winning the Chairman's Award at that second event.

In the end, I think you'll see an even stronger pool of teams competing for the Chairman's Award at the Championship.

The other thing to think about is that district events are scaled down regionals. If 12 teams (20%) at a 60 team event is competing for the Chairman's Award, then that means a 40 team district event would have 8. Now, things aren't distributed evenly so some events could have more some could have less. Under the new system you'll see that number jump. What's better for the prestige of the Chairman's Award? Winning out of a pool of 3 teams or winning out of a pool of 10 teams?

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Just makes CA=EI opportunity (except EI comes with $$):D

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I wonder if teams in the district system will be allowed to submit at out of state Regionals? The post makes it seem like that, but since teams in the regional system aren't able to compete in districts it could come across as an unfair advantage for the district teams.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Every other part of the team has the ability to improve throughout the competition season, now the Chairman's presenters do as well. This puts a lot of the gamesmanship of the RCA behind us because it's all obsolete. At least on the East Coast, you're either in a model that will already have you present at least twice in a year, transitioning to a model that will have you present at least twice a year, or you're stuck having to choose which 60+ team regional you put your bid in. The award is already significantly more difficult to win than it was 5 years ago purely because teams learned what was needed from them to win it trough trial and error. Now we're introducing more chances for kids to learn.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I'll join the voices expressing approval with this change (though I might be a little bit biased because I'm the Chairman's Lead on my team).

In particular I love the opportunity to iterate our presentation and shore up what the judges suggest we improve on. I also like that it means we'll be able to compete against more (and stronger!) teams at each of our regionals. I'm looking forward to the level of competition going up!

In my opinion, more (positive!) competition is nearly always a good thing!

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

In response to the bolded-judging criterion should inherently/does inherently base everything off the materials presented to the judges-presentation, essay, etc...Now, in the current system, obviously, I'm sure for many judges their experiences with that team have some effect, if not a subtle one, which in my opinion is an unavoidable bias(generally positive towards the team submitting)

In regards to Chairman's eligible teams (defining that as teams that have submitted via STIMS), I assume that it will be based off signing up for presentation slots. If you don't sign up to present, you're out of the running


I assume teams will be able to submit Chairman's out of district, as this change makes Chairman's an award that your eligibility is based off a)not winning won already and b)participating in the event. As of this year, MAR teams were able to submit out of district, and 2016 even won it at Buckeye.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I'm all for this change.

On the topic of improving Chairman's Award quality across the board. If teams haven't shared their submissions from last season it would be great if they added them to this spreadsheet. The more examples teams have, the better quality submissions we'll have from everyone.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Great to see fantastic responses on FRC Blog.

Seriously, why do these idiotic posts get published? It only encourages others with absolutely no regard for spelling things correctly or even thinking about how narrow minded their posts sound.

Can we stop the comments that bad-mouth others from being published? This has happened before as well.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I do like this for the most part. There are regionals that generally have strong Chairman's competition, but of course only one is selected. This will allow the true top tier teams to compete at Championships, despite their location.

One of the only cons I see with it is that it puts a lot of pressure on the Chairman's presenters. As a presenter, I feel a lot of pressure and have to put in a good amount of practice during the regional itself. I think it will make harder on the presenters, but will be better for teams and FIRST in general.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This is a great change. One of the more ridiculous things that has been going on with Chairman's submissions over the past few years has been the jockeying of teams to try and submit at "the right" event. Teams avoid submitting at certain regionals/districts because of the perceived strength of other submitting teams. By allowing teams to submit at multiple events, this issue becomes moot.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Calling other FIRSTers "idiots" isn't GP.

How do you know that post wasn't made by an overseas student or mentor who didn't learn english as a first language?

EDIT: Didn't notice that the user's name was "Trolinsky Troll", but I think some of what I said still stands; Regardless of the username, the comment still seems to voice a real concern.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

You mean that it isn't that already? For some teams, that's what it is, save that the process is over years and years (or until the team throws in the towel).

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Now that this change has happened for the Chairman's Award, will we see this for the Woodie Flowers Finalist and Dean's Lists Finalists Awards as well? Having to decide where to submit any award seems outdated all of a sudden.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

The username is what prompted my post.

The comment voices a concern Frank already addressed, and is something that has been beaten to death thousands of times in FRC.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

You got to pay the Troll Toll :ahh:

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

This move has me really impressed. If the powers that be are willing to make such a major change to the Chairman's award (for the better, too) I can only imagine what other rules will change as time goes on.

I have never been on an active Chairmans team (but am now on an HoF team, who'd have expected that?) so I can only imagine the feeling that presenters feel after they don't win the award. This is a huge positive for FRC, even if only to keep those who truly do work towards the CA for the right reasons inspired and passionate. I sincerely hope that this change leads to the most deserving team being picked, rather than the team that was lucky enough to shop for the right event.

This Frank guy is getting me more and more excited for 2014.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

There are pros and cons to this, but I see well more pros. One of the things I like in particular is that Chairman's Award presentations really put your team in front of the judges, and in that manner increase your chances of winning other awards whether you win Chairman's or not. Presenting at every event gives you yet another chance to put yourself out there.

One thing I'm leery of is the demand on judges!

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Thank you Frank for not being afraid to make big changes when it makes sense and for listening to teams' plea for change. Many years ago when most teams only go to one regional, it is unfair to them if a small number of teams who go to multiple regionals get multiple chances to present Chairman's. Now with so many district teams and others going to multiple events, those problems that Frank mentioned came up that was not there before. I am so happy I may not be able to sleep tonight. (Never mind, I don't need an excuse to stay up and work on robotics team stuff.)

Frank, you will get my vote if you ever run for US president.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I am generally positive about this change.

The only concern I have is that, if I remember correctly, upwards of 25+ teams submitted Chairman's at the WI Regional two or so years ago, and it seemed really crazy. Judge appointments were booked all day Friday and Saturday before lunch. If every team is submitting at each regional, I can see those numbers going up.

I have faith in the judges. I just would rather not see it go to 2 sets of presentation judges at a regional level if at all possible (just for consistency's sake), and I'm not sure that will even be necessary. (Yes, I do know that there are many sets of judges at Champs).

More Frank! More Frank!

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Something that I would like to see in Chairman's, or even in EI, though I doubt it will be (come on, Frank, prove me wrong!) is for teams to be officially able to "upvote" another team, especially if the team doing the "upvoting" has already won at that level in that year, or is in the HoF.

Something like: "Team A would like to upvote Team B for Chairman's. This is because Team B has been caught in the following acts of Chairman's behavior by Team A members: [short list of why Team A thinks Team B should be the Chairman's winner]." Throw it in the judges' stack along with Team B's submission. Judges can see who the other teams think should win Chairman's at that event. (At District Championships and Championships, this might be a bit unwieldy unless you trim down the field of potential submitters a bit.)

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

There may not be an official process for it, but I know of cases where this has happened before. Basically, Team A would express support for Team B during their (Team A's) own Chairman's presentation.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

As do I. I was just thinking that it might be nice to make it a more official part of judging.

Of course, how much weight the judges actually attach to any such campaigning is probably going to be a judgement call from that group of judges...

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Before I comment on the merits of the change, I would first like to applaud

a) the demonstrated thought process of pros and cons;
b) the clear communication of changes;
c) the awesomeness that is Frank Merrick.

Ok.

I think this change is good. We make improvements with the robot from our first regional to our second, why not the Chairman's presentation? I am curious how other "one regional only" awards will be handled in light of this change. (I'm looking at you, Dean's List and Woodie Flowers awards)

To pick up on something mentioned earlier, one thing that has always seemed odd to me is that even though Chairman's is the most prestigious award, it comes with a nice blue banner and a bid to the Championship while Engineering Inspiration lacks a blue banner, but comes with a $5000 prize to pay for the automatic bid to the Championship. The market value of a blue banner is $200 (plus shipping). It seems like an odd juxtaposition of prestige and funding.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Here's the stated reasoning for NASA's decision to sponsor EI winners (instead of RCA winners). I think it still holds.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Agreed. For all the same reasons as the Chairman's Award deserves to be considered at all the events that a team attends, so do Woodie Flowers and Dean's List. There should not be a need to pick where you think you will get the best reception of your team's nominated candidates. And (as said for RCA) this provides the best opportunity for FIRST to select the most deserving candidates.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I am pleased to see the evolution of the judging process in FRC as the program continues to expand.

I think reiteration is also applicable to the "softer" skills like being about to do the elevator pitch.

There will need to be some adaption to the judging process at the events in terms of spaces and people and how feedback is given, but hey, this isn't rocket science.

Onwards!

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Agreed.

Someone should step up. I almost feel like it should be a company intimately tied to the program like IFI or DEKA.

Also: Colour me completely unsurprised that 610 is among the supporters of this change... They got shafted by this (sort of) in 2013.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Which isn't really fair or GP of FIRST as it only applies to EI winners at events in the US. EI Winners at events in Canada, Israel and now Mexico aren't eligible. Non-US teams who win EI at events in the US apparently are. FIRST needs to step up and address that.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Fixed it for you.

Again, CMP registration for US-based EI winners is sponsored by NASA, not by FIRST.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Way to dot the "i" in FIRST. I find this incredibly inspirational news.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

NASA awards the money to FIRST on behalf of the teams. NASA funds can only assist US teams due to various laws and regulations.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

IIRC EI Winners in Canada /were/ getting a similar grant (at least one out of the last 3 years), and I know that FIRST Robotics Canada does actually have some grant money they use to help make sure that every qualifying Canadian team DOES go to CMP.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

On one hand, I think this is a great change for teams. More chances to present = more chances at winning, better practice for the presenters & lesser chance of judge biasing per region/past winners. I think it will result in a much better pool of RCA winners to present at the Championship, and I like the idea of strengthening the RCA pool.

On the other hand THIS:
Being involved in a brand new district, I was already worried that we may struggle to find volunteers and qualified judges... now at the qualifier event level, there is potential of needing 6+ RCA judges at each event just to be able to cram all of the presentations into one day. In a district with 9 events that means potentially recruiting 27 additional Judges... or taking time away from interviewing teams for other awards. And more judges means more cost to events - food and shirts at the very least. I'm certain everyone will find a way to make it work, but its going to add just a bit more to an already strained volunteer system across the globe.

I really hope they took the time to talk with a lot of the Judge Coordinators/Judge Advisors before implementing this. I would guess that they have, but I didn't seen any reference in Frank's post to how they would handle the extra work placed on the event committees & volunteers.

Creative teams have already taken this opportunity. Many teams leave the judges with packets. Those packets can include letters of support from other teams. It's not an official request system, but it has already been done.

Personally I'm not sure I'm a big fan of a "system" that allows teams to vote/promote RCA winners, as I think it will end up a popularity contest and you will see more lobbying and coercion and competitive mindset than you do now. I get the idea that if other teams are backing this team, it makes it more likely that that team has legitimately done all that they say they did, but I'm not sure a voting system is really the right way to gather input.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I figure an interview team could see about 24 teams in a day (4 teams an hour * 6 hours). So events where less than 24 teams are applying will not have an issue. Remember, not every team applies for the Chairman's Award. So I think it would be very unlikely you would see 40 teams competing for the Chairman's Award at a district event. I imagine the most you'd see would be around 20.

Where this becomes a problem is at the regional level where you would have 50-60 teams competing. I've seen regionals out here where there have been 20+ teams competing for the Chairman's Award and the judge team was really crunched for time.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I don't like this idea at all. There are already enough cliques and circles in FIRST, and there are plenty of great teams that get left out of the popular crowd.

Perhaps it's just how it's worded, but I didn't get a great feeling from this part of Frank's statement. I like to see teams recognized for what they do anyway, not do special things to get recognized. For example, we mentor elementary school teams in our local area because it's the right thing to do, and we want to get more students involved in robotics, not because we're competing to win an award for doing that. The minute you start mentoring or outreach for the purpose of winning an award, in my mind you have already lost.

I hate how Chairman's awards have become so based upon quantitative evidence, that often gets pretty far stretched. I can say that our program has reached over 10,000 students, with some validity to that claim. However, if you went and surveyed those 10,000 people and asked them personally if our program has had an impact on them, chances are 9,000 or more would say no.

The Chairman's award needs less emphasis on the numbers of students we reach, teams we start, or relationships we build, and more emphasis on the qualityof such programs, and the stories behind them.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I totally agree with this. When I was preparing our 2013 submission, I had to steer everybody-- including mentors who have been with the team for years-- away from the mentality of "we're doing it for Chairman's." Lo and behold, the year we approached it from that direction was our first RCA. To be honest, it's not entirely rooted out, but at least the lead mentors have seen that that sort of attitude is a problem-- I doubt it will persist much longer, at least on my team.


To be honest, I haven't really seen that sort of exaggeration as a problem, at least at the regional level in my state. That doesn't mean it isn't there in some areas-- it may just be that the Minnesota FIRST community is too young to have a significant problem with it-- last year was probably the first year that more than five Minnesota FIRST teams competed for RCA at each regional (I don't know the exact statistics, but the number has been dreadfully low for a long time).

In my experience at least, the judges have been very good about asking where numbers come from that we like to throw at them (especially really large ones). Part of the reason I think we hear the large numbers when the judges are describing the team is for shock value-- "Holy crap, they have 50 FLL teams?! (an exaggeration, to be sure, but I think the point is there)." It's less a "personal" award (like the Dean's List or WFF/WF award), and more an award for the entire team-- right? Plus there tend to be engineers on the panel, and we all know how much engineers love numbers! :rolleyes:


I agree with this, with the caveat that I think most successful RCA/CCA winners do both. It's the ones that submit and don't win it-- those are the ones who approach it from a single direction. I haven't been at an event yet where it wasn't a team that deserved the Chairman's Award that won it, and I don't see that changing with this system.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I have. "Team XXXX has reached over [number that has exceeded a million] people throughout their blah blah" in the awards announcement has been true for several years in a couple of states.

We do demos at the Grape Festival in our home town, which draws 90K-125K per year, but we don't claim 90-125K people reached per year in our essay or presentation. But there are teams that will take the total attendance of a fair or festival or other activity and add it in, in the hopes of winning the RCA (and then the national CA)--and not doing so is, in my limited experience, the exception rather than the rule.

I'm not complaining; it is what it is, and part of advertising is spin...but I wouldn't encourage my team to do it.

All I'm saying is that yes, it absolutely happens, and is common.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I never said it didn't happen, just that I didn't notice it as a problem. I then theorized as to why that might be. Apologies if that was unclear. It may be common in your region but that doesn't mean it's common in others.

On a related note, my team runs the robotics demos at the Minnesota State Fair, which had over 1.5 million attendees. There are about thirty teams that compete or otherwise present at the Fair, and I've never heard any of them use it as "exposing FIRST to over 1.5 million people," despite the fact that the competitions and presentations at the Fair have been going on for almost five years now. Make of that what you will.

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

As a HOF team, I think this is absolutely a great idea.

HOF teams were given the opportunity to give input during the summer about how we felt about the proposed (and now official) change to the RCA.
The biggest concern as shared by others here was making sure enough judges were available to accommodate an increase no. of teams competing for it, especially at bigger regionals.

Every year, there are great teams that get left out of an RCA based on the regional they choose to enter in.
Its just so much better to take it out of the equation, for the most part.

I can still see manipulation by entering at a later event, where teams may anticipate others winning it at a prior regional or week.
On the other hand, this is no different than teams choosing what regionals to enter as they try to win a blue banner or any categorical award.

Ultimately, I like the idea because the pool of teams competing for the CCA just got that much tougher, and there will be much less worthy teams getting left out of the running by the time CMP comes around.

I just hope one day, the EI award gets to be either judged or a submission can be entered similar to the Entrepreneurship Award during build season, having judges come by the pits to do specific interviews.
Based on my own personal observation, its seems that EI judging varies widely depending on the regional you attend, including CMP. How do judges determine which single team gets it out of 400 teams at CMP?
We won the CMP EI award in 2008. Yet never won it in our 14 year history at the 27 regionals we attended. Go figure?
Good luck to everyone this season!

I think everything has been pretty much said about this topic, but I just wanted to add a quick note based on Glenn's post - I think this is a great idea! I love that this will raise the level of completion for both the RCA and CA, ensuring that the teams that work day in and day out to change their culture, will be recognized.

Thank you to the HOF teams for their input in helping make this happen!

Steve

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

Absolutely agreed. Peer voting just does not work for this.

Again, agreed. But I think that this happens with any sort of award that is put on a pedestal. The truly competitive teams will obviously go out of their way to try and earn an RCA. However, I don't really see a problem with this as long as the judges recognize what community efforts are half-baked and done hastily, and what efforts from a team are planned and built upon over time. The best RCA teams have continuous growth and work on their projects year-round, while the teams who rarely win/don't win Chairman's usually aren't putting in the time and effort to build up their own programs and their reputation within their communities.

I can sort of see the truth in this, but then how do you propose RCA judges evaluate teams? The quality of a program is not always portrayed well enough in just essays and quotes from students, but the quality of a strong program is definitely shown by the numbers of students affected by the team. For example, the Simbotics app was high quality and tested through years of iteration from its beginnings as a presentation. The impact can really only be proven by numbers of downloads and views. While I do agree that there are plenty of teams who arbitrarily add in numbers into their essays and presentations, I want to assume that most teams don't try to BS the judges. (of course, many probably do)

Again, though, if you have suggestions on how to make judging easier or more accurate, definitely send it to Frank. I want the same thing you do, but I can't think of a better way either, at the moment.

-Akash

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

I'm going to throw out a suggestion for discussion.

I worry that with the majority of teams at an event presenting for CA, those teams that do not give a presentation to the judges will be overlooked for other awards. I admit I'm not sure how judging is exactly done in FRC, or if there is overlap between the CA judges and the other judges. Are the deliberations for the CA and the other awards totally separate, or is there overlap?

I have done judging for FTC where every team gives a presentation to a group of judges. There are typically 3-5 judge groups who then convene and decide on the awards. Each judge group summarizes for the others the teams that they consider contenders for each award. The pros of this model is that every team gets to highlight their team's accomplishments; the cons are that not all judges get to talk to every team. I wonder if this is a good model for FRC?

(FTC events are similar in size to most FRC events, 20-50 teams. But are usually one day events - judging has to be done expeditiously).

Re: Something New – Chairman’s Award Eligibility
 

My experience in the judging room has been there is no overlap until the very end of deliberations. I cannot speak for all the events, just the rooms I have been in. The RCA judges are doing their thing. The teams of technical and team attribute judges are doing their thing. There are lots of thoughtful nominations and deliberations after all the teams are visited, the ones that best meet the criteria for the award rise to the top of the pile, there may be revisits by different groups of judges, there are lots of post it notes being moved around and everyone tries their best to distribute the awards in a way that makes sense. Sometimes there are exceptions.

Hope this helps.