I’ve heard from a few people that judges generally try to avoid repeat Impact, EI or worlds qualifying awards at district champs. What I mean by this is basically if someone was the winner of Impact or EI at last years district champs, will the judges try to avoid them winning the award at district champs again? I’ve heard this a few times so I was wondering if anyone could confirm or deny it if possible.
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The only way you would know is if the judges in the room said something one way or the other - and the first thing I’ve heard in every judges room is “what’s said in here stays in here”. So unless that happens, all you’ll have is conjecture based on outside observation. Every year is different, every presentation is different, and there’s no reason, from the outside looking in, to be surprised if any particular team wins one year but not the next.
Summary
Oh shoot, now that I’ve spilled the beans, they’ll never let me back in!
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I somehow doubt it - 503 Frog Force won Chairman’s at the Michigan championship in 2021, 2020, 2019, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2010.
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For what it’s worth, they are not supposed to do this - teams are meant to be judged on a per-event basis and not based on prior event performance. “Spread the wealth” is meant to apply within the event, not year over year.
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There were events last season in which we were later informed by judges at events that multiple teams were not considered for awards at our 2nd event because we had just received awards the week prior.
Hearing that from a judge was concerning.
I’m usually not one to listen to these kinds of rumors, but it is hard to ignore when the source is a judge. My hope is that this was not the case, and that judging was done fairly and on a by-event basis.
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We were told after 2009 winning the RCA in Hawaii 2 years in a row, NOT to submit again there and try elsewhere. This was told to me on the side by a judge after the event.
Hence, in 2010 we did it in Arizona, and in 2011 in NYC, before winning it at Champs. I think you were there with your parents?
On a side note, we finally competed for the Impact Award (Chairman’s) again in Hawaii in 2023. Different conditions now vs. then.
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More generally to any “will the judges…” question:
The reality I try to tell my students: the ongoings in the judge rooms are highly dependent on the judges themselves: their biases, their desires, how they are feeling that day. Guidelines are meaningless unless the whole group buys the guideline is worthwhile to follow, and that’s not something I’d ever bank on for a random group of judges… especially when the judges are pulled from the ranks of local sponsoring companies, and have relatively little context to what a FRC season actually entails.
The only way I’ve found to “beat the randomness” - try to eek out what the judges are looking to hear about, then talk about that.
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That is… frustrating but not surprising. I only posted what I did, because I just took the judges training for 2024 and that is specifically called out as a not-to-do. Can’t speak to previous seasons as this will be my first-ever time in the blue polo.
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At Long Island I believe it is an unwritten rule that the same team can’t win Impact/Charimans 2xs in 5 years.
I don’t have proof other than just looking at the data. Good news is 353 won 5 years ago 
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The only repeat instances are 2020 winners (2869 in 2020 and 2017, 2638 in 2022 and 2020) and 329 (2008 and 2011) having a repeat within the 5-year window.
Seeing as we have 3 Chairman’s and 3 EI wins in the last 7 years (mostly at LI), not sure this is true.
Generally I’ve been told that they don’t like to give it to the same team multiple times, but Judges haven’t told us not to submit and we have won EI and Chairman’s back to back.
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Ignoring 2020. The best part about data is you can make it say whatever you want to make it say. Also I’ve only studied the trend with Impact. Not EI
2021 is a different set of judges with it being remote, not sure how 2020 was judged, but if I remember correctly, that was also different judges? (Someone can correct me on the 2020 one)
(This is not to take away from the work yall have done)
Correct to back up Dom. I’m extremely impressed with the work you’ve done and respect it all I didn’t mean to imply anything else. Keep changing the world because you guys are awesome at it!
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Going back to OP, it seems like you are worried that you may not get the award again. The piece of advice that our team has stuck by over the past 7 years is to keep raising the bar.
Make it so that the judges can’t justify not giving you the award, and communicate what you do in a way that it is obvious the amount of work you put into the activities.
We have several activities that we have done for quite a few years, but our mindset is that if we do the same amount of things as the previous year, it isn’t enough. This also helps us prioritize our interviews to show off the parts that are new. We understand that most of the judges know who we are and the major activities that we do, so we can touch lightly on them, while focusing more time explaining new activities that they haven’t seen before.
While none of these strategies would help if the judges see that you won last year and immediately disqualify you, but they can help to show the judges why you winning last year doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t win this year.
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I’d like to push back on this a little, at least from my perspective of being an FRC judge in the KC area since 2013. Around here, a lot of the judges currently mentor or have previously mentored teams and all of the judges I know take the values of FIRST very seriously. That’s why they volunteer their time in the first place.
While I can’t comment directly on what is said in the deliberation room, I can confirm that the judges in my area take care to read and understand all the judging guidelines that are publicly available and have a vested interest in ensuring a best fit for the robot/team that exemplifies the qualities listed on each award.
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No worries, all ideas deserve at least some pushback 
- I won’t argue there’s pockets of goodness. Indeed, I’d say the same things about our area’s FLL judging, currently. The group is well trained, cohesive, consistent, curated, genuinely care about getting the teams the best experience possible, and very rigorous to be sure guidelines are followed.
What I’m speaking to is the idea that those are just pockets - and pockets that over a long period of time will come and go. If a team doesn’t have advance info about who the judges are or how they run the event, the best they can assume is randomness.
What really drives my callousness: many years worth of getting argued with in an impact award judging room over what exactly effective outreach looks like in our area. The number of times we’ve been faced with a judge with a super-specific axe to grind has led me to believe that selling to an audience is just as important as doing the right things, at least as far as “award winning” is concerned.
And, in the context of this thread, all the rumors and hearsay about “unwritten rules” just drives home the point in my head - while there’s some phenomenal pockets of goodness for sure, the best anyone could plan on is randomness.
Personally, right now, I’d really rather just have our team document what we believe is important and quit wasting time trying to convince judges it’s important too. But my opinion isn’t universal, even within my own team. And that’s ok.
For the moment, what we’ve been trying to tell our team: Winning an award just means the judges saw something they wanted to recognize. Not-Winning an award doesn’t mean you didn’t do good things, just means you didn’t convince the judges to recognize you this particular time.
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Getting curious, I put together the list of every Impact winner for NY since 2002 (seems the data is easily available or this might be when regional Impact first started?)
One thing that stands out the only non-Long Island winner was 1156 who attended LI 6 out of 7 years in a row and two teams in Queens (1796 and 1601) who attended LI whenever it didn’t land on the same week as NYC. (Also, you can argue the semantics of Queens is on the island but that’s another story.)
When you look at other regionals they had teams win back to back, with 340 winning 7 out of 8 years in a row. So to the original question, back-to-back is possible but it seems that it can depend on the event. Another thing missed is how many of these potential repeat winners won elsewhere before the repeat was possible.
| Year | Rochester | Long Island | NYC | Tech Valley | Hudson Valley | Long Island 1 | CNY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 1511 | 1796 | 5665 | 4930 | 28 | ||
| 2022 | 4930 | 1468 | 5298 | 3015 | 2638 | ||
| 2020 | 1156 | 2869 | 2601 | 3044 | 5943 | 2638 | 3794 |
| 2019 | 2638 | 564 | 1660 | 3044 | 1156 | 353 | 329 |
| 2018 | 3015 | 810 | 694 | 1156 | 1796 | 5016 | 4122 |
| 2017 | 1511 | 2869 | 4613 | 3044 | 4091 | ||
| 2016 | 2638 | 1796 | 3646 | 229 | |||
| 2015 | 4039 | 1156 | 375 | 1111 | |||
| 2014 | 1511 | 527 | 353 | 340 | |||
| 2013 | 2809 | 358 | 1660 | ||||
| 2012 | 340 | 564 | 1382 | ||||
| 2011 | 340 | 329 | 359 | ||||
| 2010 | 340 | 2638 | 375 | ||||
| 2009 | 340 | 353 | 2344 | ||||
| 2008 | 340 | 329 | 116 | ||||
| 2007 | 1511 | 1601 | 1155 | ||||
| 2006 | 340 | 514 | 375 | ||||
| 2005 | 340 | 358 | 694 | ||||
| 2004 | 871 | 395 | |||||
| 2003 | 564 | 334 | |||||
| 2002 | 311 | 121 |
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This advice doesn’t really reconcile with groups of judges deciding on creating their own arbitrary set of rules or guidelines.
**
I’m with @gerthworm here:
Either plan for randomness, or demand more transparency from your area’s Judge Advisors.
** Jon’s quote is generally more about critiques about a team being kept in the room. But even that should be given as team feedback.
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While this is true, I have no problem speaking in general terms, not about a specific team or event.
I’ve never heard of a judge making a case against a team due to winning an award in the past. Not to say this is “right,” but if anything, I think judges have a propensity to award previous awardees since judges are human and seek some validation.
There is guidance from FIRST that, when deciding between two teams for an award, judges may consider which team would benefit more from receiving that award. Judges cannot get in the heads of team members, but practically speaking, this means that if two teams are equal in everything, but one of them has never won a given award, judges might elect to give that team said award because they think it will have greater impact on that team and spark inspiration.
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