National Engineering Inspiration Award

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by AmyPrib

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.

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.