Interview

At every competition, judges go to teams and interview them. These interviews are timed at around 10-15 minutes and can be online (like a zoom meeting) or can be done at the Pit area when in-person. At some tournaments, if your team does especially well at your first interview, you can get a second one as well. In VEX IQ competitions, this usually consists of questions asking about your team's robot design, programming, teamwork and use of the Engineering Design Process.

Interview

Why do Judges Interview?

Preparing for Interviews

Why do Judges Interview?

Judges interview to learn more about your team and to consider certain teams for judged awards, such as Excellence or Design. Interviews can help make your team stand out in ways other than your robot skill and performance.

Preparing for Interviews

We recommend preparing as a team before the competition for your interview. This will minimize teammates interrupting each other, unprofessionalism, and make your team sound more confident and ready to the judges. There are many ways your team can prepare for an interview, but a combination of all four ways below has helped our team a lot in our many interviews.

Determining Parts

Assigning certain team members to certain topics beforehand can help people know when to speak. This can make your team's interview look more put together and professional.

Order of Introducing

At the beginning of an interview, judges usually ask to introduce yourselves. Determine an order beforehand so introducing goes smoothly without interruptions. Alphabetically or in standing order are simple ways to determine this.

Knowing the Rubric

Make sure every team member on your team knows the criteria on the interview rubric. Try to incorporate requirements of the rubric into the answer when you talk. In addition, be sure to add in points you may have missed at the end of the interview if judges ask "Is there anything else you would like to add?"

Practice Interviews

Conduct practice interviews or mock interviews with anyone that is not on your team. Your team's coach, a parent, or other teams can help with this. Doing as many practice interviews as possible will make your team feel more ready for your actual interview. In addition, your interviewer can score your team based on the rubric. From there, you can adjust words and improve for next time.

Practice Questions

These are questions commonly asked by judges during the interview. Knowing what to say for every single one of these questions will make your team prepared.

What does your robot do and how does it score points?

How did you develop this robot design?

Which team members built the robot?

What part of your robot are you most proud of? Why?

Were there any other robots that inspired your robot design? How?

What changes did you make to improve your design during the season?

What was the most difficult challenge your team has overcome so far?

Did you use any sensors? What are they used for? How do they operate in your autonomous mode? How do they operate in your driver-controlled mode?

What problems did you have in working on your robot? How did your team solve them?

If you has one more week to work on your robot, how would you improve it?

Has your game strategy been effective? How and why?

Tell us about your robot's programming - who was the primary programmer?

What were the challenges of this year's game that you considered before designing your robot? How did you design your robot to meet those challenges?

What are your goals for Driver and Programming Skills scores? What are your average scores?

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Tips

Tip #1 - Respect the Judges

Always be respectful, positive, and courteous to the judges. Not only is this a criteria on the rubric, it is about being a team of great character and following rule <G1> Have Respect. You can do this by shaking the judge's hand after you introduce yourself and being attentive throughout the entire interview. Speak in a positive and polite manner, and make eye contact at the judge while doing so.

Tip #2 - Speak Loudly

Speak clearly and loudly as possible during an interview. When interviews are done in-person, the pit areas are often extremely loud. If your voice is not loud enough, move closer to the judge when speaking. If the interview is online, make sure your mic is working and speak as loudly as possible. Team members with generally softer/quieter voices can stand in the front to better be heard.

Tip #3 - Be Mindful of the Time

Most interviews are 10-15 minutes long, and timed by the judges. Judges will usually tell you how long the interview is going to be right before you start. Your team may need to shorten some responses and speak slightly faster to attempt to hit all criteria in the rubric before time is up.

Tip #4 - Point to any Relevant Materials to the Discussion

While explaining questions related to the more technical aspects such as the robot, pointing to the specific mechanism while talking can be beneficial to both you and the judge. Briefly looking at the mechanism can jog your memory and it can also be a visual guide for judges to see which mechanism you are talking about and how it works.

Tip #5 - Adding onto Teammates

Adding onto responses to your teammates can elevate your interview. Elaborate on their answer and making connections to the Engineering Design Process or certain criteria in the rubric your team hasn't answered yet. This is also a great opportunity to add on information about things the judge hasn't asked yet (some judges will only ask a few questions that don't allow your team to fully hit points in the rubric). For example, after Teammate #1 finishes talking about how their robot's shooter works, Teammate #2 can add on about how they used the step Test and Evaluate to tune the speed of the shooter.

Other Resources

These links are resources to help you strengthen your interview skills.

A page on the REC Foundation's website about judging: https://viqrc-kb.recf.org/hc/en-us/categories/9699882138007-Judging
1. The Judging Resource: Team Interview Rubric is the same rubric judges use to score your team's interview, and mentioned in Preparation #3. thttps://viqrc-kb.recf.org/hc/en-us/articles/9783439701399-Judging-Resource-Team-Interview-Rubric

The VEX Forum, which is a compilation of valuable discussion made from other people who participate in VEX IQ. The Vex Forum is a continuous thread of questions and answers: https://www.vexforum.com/c/vex-iq-general-discussion/5

Page updated

Report abuse