should there be a award for programming skill?

[njamietech]

Originally Posted by EricH

They already have one. Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award. It covers at least the last two parts. OK, so you could add a code section--but there are at least 2 available languages, and each has at least 2-3 different methods of doing the same thing, and every programmer (or programming team) is going to have a slightly different style of doing it. I wouldn't want to judge that one. The FLL one is hard enough! (One language, maybe 2, and there aren't a whole lot of possible variations.)

Ok so I see your point, there might be a logistics problem.

But I still hold my ground in that many students in FIRST are more focused on finshing their code than the ethics that goes along with it. And while I was on 624, I saw the same situation happen over and over again: there would be a logic error in the code or even a runtime error, and it would take an hour or more to find the error.

My point was that we need a way to encourage students to write their code in a way that makes it easier for them to debug and prepares them for college and their career.

and while an award may or may not be the best way, the need is still there.