How to win Engineering Inspiration award???

[H.A.L.]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

The best way to win an award is to not try to win an award.

This.
We won EI at our champs devision last year. We had never won EI at any regional ever and it wasn't on many of our radars.
This advice is also what most every Hall of Fame team says about the Championship Chairman's Award - though that advice is more specific to not doing outreach activities with the intent on them looking good on Chairman's submissions. Similarly, I would recommend not doing engineering related outreach/projects just for EI (of course that would be difficult to do anyway since I have heard differing opinions on what EI recognizes even from a number of judges - the manual is the only reliable tool).
I would recommend that, in your pit, you effectively pitch both your robot and, more importantly for this IMO, your teams outreach (STEM related in particular), since I have consistently been told it is an award decided by technical judges through pit conversations. This could include handouts and practiced talkers. I posted the documents we gave to judges last year here (the two middle links on the post): http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...48#post1391848

Edit: I meant to say non-technical judges in the pit (as opposed to Chairman's judges), not technical judges.
(I too have heard EI is considered by some to be a runner up for Chairman's or Chairman's judged by pit judges. I prefer to think of it as an award recognizing engineering outeach and impact on engineering. Though based on my observations at regionals it is often given to teams who were great Chairman's canidates, but then again it would make sense for such teams to be up for both awards.)