National Engineering Inspiration Award
 

After winning this at two regionals I still have to say it's a mystery to me. I asked both Dean and Woody at Boston and neither of them knew whether it was an overall award or a division award. I assume it's like Chairman's and it's overall, but is it like Chairman's in that it's only open to regional EI winners?

I'd appreciate any feedback you guys can give me.

Re: National Engineering Inspiration Award
 

I assume you are talking about the international, championship Engineering Inspiration award? And you're asking if there is one given out, or one per division given out, and if it's open to everyone?

The Awards section of the game manual xplains each award. For Chairmans and divison awards, it specifies. For EI, it just says it will be given to a team. It is not only open to regional EI winners (as far as I know), so it's open to any team at Champs.

Re: National Engineering Inspiration Award
 

Only one is given out at the championship event. typically it is a team in the race for national chairman's award. I can imagine its because the judges see more of these teams because of the interviews and have a better idea of what that teams does, and because the awards meet similar criteria. but these are only assumptions as the awards selection process is a secret to me.

Re: National Engineering Inspiration Award
 

I discovered that yes, it's a non-division overall award open to any team, and while the regional chairman's winners have a greater chance at winning it it's definitely possible for a non-chairman's winner to recieve it, just a lot more difficult. The award descriptions are a little different, that's what makes it possible, I think. All the judges are very different.

Re: National Engineering Inspiration Award
 

I would not necessarily say teams in the running for chairmans are usually the EI winner (but I didn't look at past years stats). Or I should say - it's not BECAUSE they are in the running for CA. The judges for Chairmans are (or are at regionals) different than judges for all the other awards. So, if a team in the running for chairmans wins the EI, it's because they proved to the rest of the judges that talked to them in their pits that they deserve to win it based on their teams' activities.

Theoretically, only the chairmans award judges read the CA entries, so they are the only ones armed with all the extra information up front. The other judges should be gathering information directly from the teams during the event and should not have any predisposed opinion of teams, including CA candidates. Once the judges deliberate and make their decisions, I believe they'd make sure EI and CA aren't the same team.

But, due to some of the similarity and overlap of judging criteria for both, it's likely that a CA candidate is also found to be a candidate for EI. But I don't believe the judges should be using the CA entries to make that determination.

Re: National Engineering Inspiration Award
 

The Chairman's judges also judge other awards as well, and the other judges have some input at Chairman's, or so I have been led to beleive. Additionally, if you give the judges who come to your pits a copy of your chairman's award, that is often a great way to help make sure all the judges know what you have done.

Re: National Engineering Inspiration Award
 

In Boston... we weren't eligible for Chairman's, but we did give the judges a copy of the submission if they wanted more information about what we've done, so that's a good bit of advice =)