I am from a small canadain team. Last year was our first, and while one person from the team worked very hard on the chairman's award submission, he failed to hand it in on time
. I agree that a four-page summary is more equal to all teams than a video.
But this is not the point. While reading this thread, I wondered why people called this submission an 'essay'. I understand this word as something very boring typed with a 10-size font. I think we can make those fout pages into more than that! It doesn't even have to be in words. It could only have pictures, if your team wishes. For people who complained about not using technology enough, why don't you try to make some 3D images on there in a hologram or something like that?!? Or for designers: just as there are tons of ways to make a video, there are so many ways to design four pages! I think calling it an essay kills everybody's creativity about that. Don't make it a boring essay for the judges to read, make something interesting out of it.