Awards Eligibility

FLL teams work extremely hard over the course of a season, and after so much effort the last thing anyone wants is for a team to be ineligible for tournament awards. All teams are normally eligible to win up to one award at any event.   However, as noted in the Coaches’ Handbook, inappropriate adult intervention or behavior could result in a team becoming ineligible to win any awards, advance within the region’s tournament system, or participate in any other FLL events for the remainder of the season.

As the Judge Advisor, you will be responsible for ensuring that other award eligibility considerations are met:

Team Participation

• FLL teams may have up to 10 children, ages 9-14.  To participate, a child cannot be older than 14 on January 1 of the year the Challenge is announced.

• A 30 member team with a 10 person competition team is not okay out of fairness to all other teams. 

• All team members present at an event are expected to participate in all judged sessions, in addition to showing up as a team for the Robot Game.

• Specialization is okay, but all team members should minimally be able to direct questions to the appropriate team member. 

• Teams must participate in all elements of an FLL competition including the Robot Game and all three judged areas in order to be eligible for any FLL Core Award.

• Encourage parents of students with special needs to share successful participation strategies prior to the event so that these may be accommodated whenever possible.

Multiple Events

• While they may attend other events for fun, teams are only eligible to win awards at the first official event of each qualifying level attended each season. Teams may not shop for awards by attending multiple Qualifiers or events in different regions to ensure fairness to teams and provide equal opportunity to win awards.
• ,Teams have been asked to use the honor system and notify the tournament organizer when they are not eligible to win awards based on the above circumstances.
• Teams attending Open Championships and the World Festival are exempt from this policy.  ALL teams at Open Championships and the FLL World Festival are eligible to receive awards at those events, regardless of whether they received awards at other events or not.

Core Values Eligibility

• For Core Values ( and ANY) award eligibility, teams must uphold and display FLL Core Values at all times, not just during Core Values judging sessions.  This requirement applies not only to team members but also coaches, mentors, parents and others associated with the team.  

• Core Values input may come from any event volunteer. 

Project Eligibility

• For Project award eligibility, teams must demonstrate completion of all 3 steps of the scientific process (identify a real world problem related to the Challenge, develop an innovative solution, and share findings and results with others) as part of their presentation.

• Teams must also fulfill and demonstrate any other Project requirements as defined in the annual Challenge documents.
• To be fair to all teams, required elements that are not demonstrated during the 5 minute presentation but later emerge through question/answer with the judges would not count toward eligibility requirements and should be noted in the rubric comment area.
• Project presentations must be less than 5 minutes in length, including set up time.
• Presentations must also be “live” with media used for enhancement only.   Plug and play presentations are not okay.

Robot Eligibility

• To be eligible for Robot Performance or any Robot Design awards, the robot used during the Robot Game must be built in accordance with all allowable parts, software and other rules. 

• Teams may use additional parts, e.g. extra motors, during Robot Design judging when clearly identified. 

• The Robot Performance Award remains the only exception to the one team/one award rule.
• The Robot Performance Award ALWAYS goes to the team with the highest score after a minimum of 3 official rounds.
• In the event of a tie, look at the teams' second highest scores and so on. 
• Events may use Local Awards to recognize elimination or alliance round winners when utilized.

© 2011 The United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST®) and The LEGO Group.  Used by special permission. All rights reserved.