First time doing design awards

General race coordinator discussions.
Post Reply
dfscott
Journeyman
Journeyman
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:34 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA

First time doing design awards

Post by dfscott »

We've never had any design awards in our PWD and since I'm PWD Chair (for the first time) this year, I've decided to see about adding them to reward some of the clever designs I've seen in the past. (As a disclaimer, my oldest son is always much more interested in his car's appearance than its performance, so I can't say that my motive is totally unbiased. :oops: )

That said, I'm looking at either recruiting some scouts from our local Troop to do the judging. Barring that, I'm going to get some people from our Chartering Org to do it. In any case, I'm definitely going to have impartial judges. Since I'm awarding speed trophies to the top 3 by Cub Year and one overall "Fastest in the Pack" award, I'm looking to create parallel awards on the Design side.

My thoughts are to have present awards in each Cub Year for a highest aggregate score (determined how? not sure...) in the following:

1) Originality/Clever Concept
2) Workmanship and Detail
3) Overall Appearance / Appeal (might be overlap with #2?)

Then, there will be a overall "Best in Show" (which is the car with the highest total score of the three above, regardless of Cub Year) that lines up with the "Fastest in the Pack" award.

How does this sound? Any traps here? I'm considering adding a "Cub's Choice" award, but I'm not sure if that would be too many awards. As a data point, we've only got 38 boys in the pack, with between 7 and 11 in each Cub Year.

I think if I can present a solid set of procedures on how it would work to the Pack Committee and Den Leaders, I can get buy-in, so that's why I want to get it pretty detailed. If anyone would be willing to share their process (not just the awards that are distributed, but how they are determined as well), I would really appreciate it!
User avatar
FatSebastian
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 2804
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:49 pm
Location: Boogerton, PA

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by FatSebastian »

dfscott wrote:I'm considering adding a "Cub's Choice" award, but I'm not sure if that would be too many awards.
I like the idea of a Cub's Choice. (If you are worried about too many awards, perhaps consider eliminating one of the appearance awards that overlaps?) The "trap" would be if the Cubs have the same taste as your judges when it comes to craftsmanship such that one car ends up with multiple appearance awards, but this could be mitigated by having the judges fall back to their second favorite if over-awarding a single car is a concern.
User avatar
Darin McGrew
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 1825
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:23 pm
Location: Knoxville, TN
Contact:

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by Darin McGrew »

In my experience observing judges, it's much easier for them to rank their top n choices, than to award points to every car. Actually, when they award points to every car, they often double-check the point totals for their top n choices, making sure the point totals match the ranking they expect. So I'd just let each judge rank their top n choices in each category and work with that.

We used to have an overall "Best of Show" design trophy, with secondary trophies for "Best Automobile Design", "Best Unusual Design", and "Best Finish and Detail". We also had the judges create new awards for cars they thought deserved awards, but that hadn't received the official awards. We'd end up with awards like "Most Nautical" or "Most Edible", depending on the designs that year. However, creating the new awards required the judges to meet as a group and discuss their choices, which may affect impartiality.

We currently award "Best Automobile Design" and "Best Unusual Design", with 1st through 3rd place in each. We found that a single "Best Design" category penalized those who built really nice automobile designs. The judges tended to choose the unusual designs over automobile designs that displayed similar (or even better) craftsmanship.
User avatar
Darin McGrew
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 1825
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:23 pm
Location: Knoxville, TN
Contact:

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by Darin McGrew »

Oh, if you're going to have a "Cubs' Choice" award, give each kid multiple votes, which must be cast for different cars. That allows them to vote for their own car, plus the one(s) they actually like best.
User avatar
5kidsracing
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 114
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:47 pm
Location: Bettendorf, Iowa
Contact:

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by 5kidsracing »

We have speed and show awards, the show awards are usually:

Scout Choice (one in each rank)
Cub Scout Theme
Patriotic Theme
Best Paint Job
Most Creative

The leaders/pinewood committee vote on the theme awards and the scouts vote on the "scout choice" awards. Our car holders have a seperate section in front of the cars with a hinged door. The door has a small hole in front of each car. Each scout receives 5 beads and they put the 1 bead in the hole of their 5 favorite cars. The scouts only vote on the cars in their own rank. Car with the most beads gets the "Scout Choice" award.
For my "Pinewood Story" go to: http://5kidsracing.webs.com/index.htm
dna1990
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 360
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:16 pm
Location: Houston, TX

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by dna1990 »

We have about eight categories. Best Paint Job, Most Patriotic, Looks Fast, Fast Food, Best Creature, etc. And then Judge's Favorite.

We get all PWD committe members to vote for their favorite car in each of those categories within each rank. They can vote for same car in multiple categories - so Best Paint Job and Looks Fast can sometimes go to the same car for example.

Judges can also skip voting on a specific category if they feel no car catches their eye. They can also choose to recuse themselves from voting on a whole rank where their own scout is (but not required).

The last category is Judge's Favorite per rank. Again this is a direct vote cast by each judge, not a tally from other categories.

We then tally across judges, and if car 101 gets 5 votes for Blue & Gold theme and car 108 gets only 2 - then 101 wins that category.

Now we DO look at distribution of awards within a given rank. If there is a tie, we will often give that category to the car with less awards. If one car just SWEEPS all the categories, we look hard if there is not another contender in at least a few categories. And that enough judges were in on the vote to average it out.

Only our Judge's Favorite gets any serious award (trophy), the others get a certificate or stand label.

All of the voting and tally is done on check-in night.


During the race itself, we have scout's vote. I think this is fun to do. Each scout only votes for their single favorite car, but from a rank other than their own. We do this in groups and have them vote while other ranks are racing, keep em busy. These are straight tallies. A car can easily win an award or more from the adults judges and still also get Scout's Favorite. But in reality, this is not as often as you think. Scouts vote for army paint jobs or cartoon themes, adults vote for craftsmanship or creativity.


So it sounds sorta complex, but the point was to be simple. Just give each judge a grid arranged by rank and category. They simply write down a car number in each square that is the best for that section (or leave some blank). The scouts get a single ticket to write down the car number they like best from rank X.

I think it easier to get lots of judges and tally across all their responses versus getting a small number of 'impartial' judges.

You can even get clever with the adult voting, using a XLS that records the votes, does a tally, allows for overides, then produces the exact CSV file needed to import back into GPRM.
dfscott
Journeyman
Journeyman
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:34 pm
Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by dfscott »

Thanks, everyone, for all their input.

One question for the folks with lots of different award types: do you announce the categories ahead of time? For example, "Best Creature"? I'm just wondering if you let the boys shoot for a particular award or if you just let them build the best car they can and if they happen to build the only car that looks like a creature, then c'est la vie?
dna1990
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 360
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:16 pm
Location: Houston, TX

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by dna1990 »

We have a core set of awards that have existed for years, so everyone knows to shoot for, Best Creature for example.

But we have also put in new categories if one comes to mind. "Fast Food" came about as we kept getting alot of food-shaped cars one time.
User avatar
Darin McGrew
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 1825
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:23 pm
Location: Knoxville, TN
Contact:

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by Darin McGrew »

We would announce the official awards: Best of Show, Best Automobile Design, Best Unusual Design, and Best Finish & Detail. The others were made up by the judges to reward cars that they thought deserved an award, but that didn't receive one of the 4 official awards. As such, no one knew what the others would be until the judges determined the results.
User avatar
5kidsracing
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 114
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:47 pm
Location: Bettendorf, Iowa
Contact:

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by 5kidsracing »

We announce them before the derby so the scouts that don't really shoot for a fast car can compete for a show award. We change the catagories from year to year but usually stick to "cub scout theme" and "patriotic theme". In the past we had certificates for the show awards but the last couple years we have purchased trophies for both show and speed. The scouts that go for speed usually don't go for show so it spreads the trophies out and that's nice.
For my "Pinewood Story" go to: http://5kidsracing.webs.com/index.htm
User avatar
Darin McGrew
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 1825
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:23 pm
Location: Knoxville, TN
Contact:

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by Darin McGrew »

5kidsracing wrote:The scouts that go for speed usually don't go for show so it spreads the trophies out and that's nice.
That's been my experience too. For one thing, a lot of "show" designs include features that slow the car down (e.g., large aerodynamic cross section, high rotational inertia). For another, time invested in the car's appearance can't be invested in the car's speed. But every year or two, we have a kid who manages to win both a design award and a speed award, and I wouldn't want to take anything away from that accomplishment.
User avatar
pack529holycross
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 555
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:25 pm
Location: Dr. Phillips, Florida
Contact:

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by pack529holycross »

In my opinion doing a "Cub Scout Choice" award is one of the highlights of the event for the kids. We tell them to pick their top three choices, then we have an award for that car beyond Design Awards - most patriotic, best cub scout theme, most unique design, best automotive design, and best paint. I tend to make sure that everyone walks away with something, so we have the GPRM software print speed certificates, and we can also add some additional certificates such as "most stickers used" or "most colors used" or "best use of purple or pink" for a siblings car.

The options for non speed certificates within the GPRM software are endless, so it is my opinion that every kid who makes the effort to participate in the activity should get recognition of some kind at the end of the event.

Nicholas
goldrush
Journeyman
Journeyman
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:26 am
Location: Balzac, Canada

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by goldrush »

For the last 2 years I have been on our committee, we gave each entrant a ballot for "Peoples Choice". They got to choose their favorite Kub Kar, Scout Truck and Open Class car. We also had "Sponsor" Kars and Trucks.

That way it was completely impartial, and judged by the masses.

Gerry
JimFPU
Apprentice
Apprentice
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 8:54 am
Location: Melissa, TX

Re: First time doing design awards

Post by JimFPU »

I do AWANA's cars for a homeschool co-op 'Friday School'. We meet 9 or 10 weeks and the kids build the cars in class (except paint is a homework) and the we race the last week of class. Kids pick up their awards that evening at the Expo. The Design awards have always been fun for me, as we let the kids vote for which ones they like the best. They vote and we count them up and get 1, 2 and 3 per class, currently 2 classes 4th-12th grade both boys and girls. No on knows the Design ranks until they show up at Expo. I also do a best of show design award as a competition of the combined classes. Interesting thing last semester was that neither of the cars that won individually in their class won the overall! More interesting was the car that won (an incomplete Star Wars speeder bike) didn't win anything in it's class (speed or design)! My son was very suprised (as was I) when he showed up to see his car sitting on top of the trophy that evening! LOL!
Post Reply