[Mark Pierce]

Both of the above awards can be awarded for programming. Part of what makes it hard for judges to decide these awards is the difficulty non-programmers have in understanding what's unique or exceptional about a specific program. I'm not saying the judges have difficulty, I'm saying the programmers have an uphill battle explaining their innovation to team members who likely will be talking to the judges. Programmers themselves may also have difficulty recognizing what's unique about what they did or explaining it themselves.

In order to get one of these awards, much of the challenge is the description of the design. I'd like teams who do this well explain what materials or techniques they use to do this communication.