[Alex Golec]

As the question is currently phrased, I would prefer that the award be judged by industry professionals because they would have an eye for technical details that many of us may not notice (use of cable harness, adaptive parts, etc.)

However, that is not to say that this is the only answer. A few weeks ago I spotted an article on digg (tragically, I cannot find it right now) that computed an "overall" top-100 list of movies. It combined the data from IMDb (fan-based voting) and rottentomatoes (critic-based voting) to create a master list.

Perhaps a system such as this could be used - 50% students, 50% professionals. Perhaps the voting could be done like it is in the oscars, where only people with expertise vote for technical awards such as sound or costume design. Maybe each team could get one vote (hopefully decided by the student(s) who know Inventor) to contribute to the final decision.

These are but few of many possible solutions.