Judging Design Awards

[Darin McGrew]

How does your group conduct the judging for the design awards?

The last few years, we've had registration on Wednesday night and the derby on Saturday night. So we have almost 72 hours to arrange for impartial adult judges to view the cars and assign awards. We have the panel of judges come in together. Each judge independently ranks (what they consider to be) the top cars, then the panel discusses their rankings and reaches a consensus. The consensus approach works fine as long as the judges are cooperative and there isn't too much time pressure.

Before that, registration was before the race, with only a 1-hour break (for a potluck dinner) for the judging. This had the disadvantage that the judges didn't get to enjoy dinner, but it avoided an extended impound period between registration and the race. Some years we used a consensus approach, and other years we had each judge rank their top n cars for each award and averaged the scores to pick the winners.

The ranking approach was rather simple. Each judge's top car got n points, the next got (n-1) points, and so on. First we'd figure out the "best of show" grand prize. Then we'd figure out the "best auto design", "best unusual design", and "best finish & detail" awards, with the winner of the "best of show" grand prize not being eligible for these other (lesser) awards.

Some years we haven't segregated the design awards into categories. We've just used 1st-4th. This is even easier, since the judges only need to rank the cars in a single category, rather than turning in separate rankings for each of several categories.

[Da Graphite Kid]

Darin,

Our Pack has the Cub Scouts vote for Best of Show right after check-in is completed and before the racing begins. This takes about 15 minutes and is well worth the time spent doing so. All of the boys receive a ballot with which they are told to vote for the four best looking pwd cars. We give 4 points for first, 3 for second and so on. To make sure that all boys receive some points (and to make sure all the boys turn in only one ballot) they are told to vote for their car as the best looking of the bunch (we number all cars and they vote by these numbers). There is no talking during this time. The points are tallied while the racing is going on so only one person knows how the points ended up. We announce the points that everyone receives when we present each racer his partcipation ribbon at the end of the race, so no one really knows who won until the points for the last racer are spoken. Creates a lot of suspense and the boys seem to enjoy it more than the old way we use to do it.

Three years back and before, we used to get a local Boy Scout Troop to help us with the race. They were the car handlers and also the judges for Best of Show. This was fine until I figured out after three years that they were given instructions to NOT vote for a certain Cub Scout's car. His brother was a member of that Troop. No parent or Cub Scout there would have ever thought that the Boy Scouts were voting for this boy's car because of that reason as his cars were always one of the best and neatest looking every year! TDean and SpeedBuggy would think the same as every year he built a Star Wars themed car. This boy deserved to win, so I figured out a way that he could - and so now the Cub Scouts vote!

Da Graphite Kid

[Stan Pope]

For unit design competition, I've had judging done by
1. Community leaders
2. Charter Organization leaders
3. Cub Scouts
4. Past Pack leaders

For district design competition, I've had judging done by
1. Community leaders
2. Past Derby organizers

All seemed successful.

Judges are asked to apply their own values. And to discuss among themselves the reasons for their selections before rendering results.

Judges are not supposed to know who owns the cars that they are judging.

We do not announce places or points beyond trophy winners. There is value in shared belief that "my car was the next one down." There is no value in knowing that "Johnny's car was alone in last place."

[Darin McGrew]

A few years ago, our church's Pioneer Girls leaders had a Sailboat Race. Rather than having independent design judges, they had each girl "write something nice" about each of the other girls' boats. This works well as an informal technique, for derby cars, sailboats, or whatever else. Except...

The leaders passed around a sheet of paper for each boat, and had girls add their comments to those already written down. Some girls wrote very cruel things. Other girls read these cruel comments, and wrote even more cruel things. There were a lot of hurt feelings.

If you're going to do this, then do not let anyone see the comments written by any of the other kids until a responsible adult has had a chance to edit them. Let each kid turn in a single sheet of paper with comments for all the other boats, and then assemble all the comments for each boat into a single page. You can either cut the original sheets apart and reassemble them, or you can retype the handwritten comments.

[RandyUnderwood]

We have several (8) design categories and the way we vote for the winner of each category is pretty close to something you've tried in the past with one slight modification. We ask every adult at the race to cast a ballot - we usually have them fill in their ballot during the break between the kids' races and the adult races (we usually take a 15 - 30 min break in between to give the race crew a rest and to reset the software - admin stuff). The ballots are setup so that each person will vote for the first, second, and third best car in each category. We calculate the winner by giving each first place vote three points (two points for a second place vote and 1 point for a third place vote), then we add up the points and the highest point total in each category wins. We do however place restrictions on who can win. If a racer wins a speed award (either first through third in his den or overall pack first through third), we do not allow that racer to win a design award. We also do not allow the same racer to win multiple design awards (although we have never had any problems with that to date).

[Darin McGrew]

We do however place restrictions on who can win. If a racer wins a speed award (either first through third in his den or overall pack first through third), we do not allow that racer to win a design award.

I strongly dislike this approach. It turns the design awards into a consolation prize for those who don't win the "real awards" (the speed awards). And it can deny well-earned design awards to those who would prefer them over the speed award they just happened to win.

If you feel the need to "spread out the awards more", then add a couple more awards. There aren't that many cars that can win both a design award and a speed award that it will break the bank to recognize them. If someone has built a car that is fast enough to win the race and attractive enough to win the judges' approval, then they should win both a speed award and a design award.

We also do not allow the same racer to win multiple design awards (although we have never had any problems with that to date).

This makes sense, and it's easy to sort out when a car gets the most points for "Best of Show" and some other (lesser) award. The confusion sets in when a car wins more than one of the lesser categories that aren't clearly ranked (e.g., "Best Auto Design" and "Best Finish & Detail", or "Most Humorous" and "Best Unusual Design"). Ultimately, you end up prioritizing the design awards, although you may present them as equal.

[dave4him]

Darin McGrew said:

If someone has built a car that is fast enough to win the race and attractive enough to win the judges' approval, then they should win both a speed award and a design award.

I agree also.

I know this is an old topic, but here goes...

I was wondering how other clubs and packs conduct their design judging? To be specific, are the judges allowed to touch the cars? Some people put numbered stickers on the bottom of the cars for identification, others on top which looks bad, I prefer the bottom, but what if a judge drops and breaks a car? ("Where's the back door")

I've been printing "Parking Permits" which the car sits on. It is longer than the car so the assigned number and class is showing for the judge to see. It works, but I was curious as to how others tackle this issue.

[gpraceman]

We instruct the design judges not to handle the cars. Once they are checked in, we only let the racers handle their cars. We don't want any cars dropped or otherwise damaged by any of the race staff.

During check-in we fill out a small card for each car with the car's number and race group. This card get placed with the car on the staging table and is used to help the race staff (including the design judges) identify the cars. The cards do not contain the racer's name so as not to influence the design judging. A card also serves as a checklist for check-in of the car.

These cards are included in the race documents that I have posted to my GrandPrix Race Central website. The documents include design judging instructions and scoresheets.

[Da Graphite Kid]

Dave,

Since our Cub Scouts are the judges we definately don't allow them to handle the cars when judging as there is just too much opportunaty for gravity to interact with someone's creation and change it up some.

We label the underside of the cars and place them on a table in a numbered location for judging and in this way the boys vote buy number and not by who's car it is.

Da Graphite Kid

[Jthompson]

We are in our inaugural event for Pinewood derby and [censored] like to know if anyone has specific criteria for best design.

[Darin McGrew]

We are in our inaugural event for Pinewood derby and [censored] like to know if anyone has specific criteria for best design.

In the past, we've provided our judges with various criteria, assigning so many points for each, and determining the final results by adding the scores for each of the criteria. We found that the judges just jiggered the criteria scores to get the total scores to line up with their overall impression of which car was best. Now we just ask them to rank the top n cars for each of the categories, and then we use those rankings to come up with the final results.

We do ask the judges not to worry about "who made the car" (i.e., the kid or the parent). For one thing, the point of the derby is to be a parent-child (or mentor-child) activity. For another, some kids can build some impressive designs without much adult assistance.

[Mike Parrish]

...These cards are included in the race documents that I have posted to my GrandPrix Race Central website. The documents include design judging instructions and scoresheets.

We have adopted the design criteria from gpraceman's website. It's easily understood and reduced the time it took for judging the previous year (Thanks Randy!).

[Da Graphite Kid]

We just tell the boys to list the top 4 "coolest" or "best looking" cars with theirs being listed first. We let the Cub Scouts judge for best of show as they know what they like better than any adult!


Da Graphite Kid

[gpraceman]

...These cards are included in the race documents that I have posted to my GrandPrix Race Central website. The documents include design judging instructions and scoresheets.

We have adopted the design criteria from gpraceman's website. It's easily understood and reduced the time it took for judging the previous year (Thanks Randy!).

Mike,

I'm glad it was helpful.

[SpinDoctor]

Our Pack is sponsored by the local VFW Post. They let us use the hall. After we impound the cars on friday night be rustle up a few vets to judge the cars in the 12 special catagories we have identified