How Winners are Selected

Assigning judges

Each judge evaluates teams within any of the twelve challenges that they feel comfortable with. They rank with a numeric score and also may nominate projects for specialty awards.

Evaluating projects

Judges evaluate projects on the five dimensions outlined in the Judging Criteria. For each of the five dimensions, the judge assigns 0–5 points depending on how well, in the judge’s opinion, the project meets the standards of that dimension. After scoring each dimension, the judge adds up the points, and that sum is the project’s Total Score. The Total Score can range from 0 to 25.

Tallying scores

Judges enter their scores into one of the computers at the judging station. From there, these scores go into a central database. The project with the highest total is declared the winner of the challenge; the project with the second-highest total wins second place; and so on. In the event of a tie, the team with the greatest number of higher scored votes will win.

Winning

In order to win, a project must not only be viewed as having high enough quality to merit a ranking, it must be considered so by a large number of the judges. 

Specialty awards

Specialty award winners are determined by recommendations from the judges. Each judge nominates projects for each specialty award. The winner in each category is simply the project that receives the greatest number of nominations that has not received any of the aforementioned awards.

Advisors' favorite

This award winner is determined from nominations submitted by project advisors. Advisors cannot nominate any project from their own school.

Director of Judging

Leading the judging process is a director of judging, who works to ensure the most objective judging possible. The director of judging does not interact with the judges. The director, with a crew of data entry personnel, gathers judging evaluation sheets and tabulates winners based on collective scores. 

The night before the competition, advisers are provided information on the competition. The morning of the competition, the Director of Judging, Imagine Tomorrow Co-Chairs, and a veteran judge, explain the judging process to judges at a mandatory orientation meeting (breakfast provided).  

Addressing score discrepancies. The director of judging reserves the right to bypass a project if there is considerable discrepancy, defined as an unusually large standard deviation, among judges’ scores for a specific project. This would occur if some judges consider a project to be outstanding, while others consider it to be poor. Because the director does not discuss projects with judges while the competition is in progress, and therefore cannot reconcile the score discrepancy, the director will instead send forward the project with the next-largest average, if there is good agreement among its judges’ scores.