Judges play a critical role in making the event successful for the young inventors. We need volunteer judges to evaluate student work in both online and in-person formats. Judges help us award outstanding projects, provide project feedback, and identify inventors who should represent the states at national events! We have a rubric for our judges to evaluate inventor submissions, and we train our judges on how to use the rubric and our judging systems. We need judges from many diverse career paths to view projects through their own professional lens and provide well-rounded scores and feedback to young inventors.
All judges must be 18 years or older and no longer in high school. Although judges are there to evaluate the inventors, they also must work well with the children to put them at ease and get the most out of them.
If you are interested in volunteering with us, you can register through the link below. If you have further questions, please reach out to Ryan Smith: [email protected]
How It Works
You will receive training on judging day for judging session start. Projects will be judged with a group of three judges. Judging team will listen each student one at a time and ask their questions. Projects will set up on tables arranged in U-shaped structure which are called judging circles. We will try our best to form the judging team from diverse career backgrounds.
Judging training may take 15-20 minutes. Judging itself should take 60-90 minutes. Lunch and deliberations on selecting best projects may take 60-90 minutes.
Each judging circle is expected to have 6-9 projects and each judging team is expected to one judging circle in their allotted time. In case if we don't have enough judges, judging team may judge a second circle. Therefore, it’s important to have many judges so that each team evaluates only one judging circle.
To review the judging rubric, please click button below.