Rubrics are used as an aid for determining the top teams for the judged awards.   They are tools to organize and ease communication amongst the award judges.  The winners are not selected strictly by their rubric scores.  These rubrics are filled out by the Judge Panels and will be sent to your team after the MTI.

Software Innovation and Quality Award - The goal of this award is to recognize teams that demonstrate both innovative application of software in this year’s FIRST Tech Challenge game and strong software engineering techniques.  The winning team will receive a grant. Teams must submit documentation to be considered for this award.  For full details see the document below. 

K.I.S.S. Award - This award will go to the team that has embraced and demonstrated the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Straightforward and Simple) philosophy when designing their robot. This award celebrates the accessibility and reliability of an elegant mechanical design. This award can be given to a team for their overall design or for a specific component on their robot. The winning team will receive a grant.  

Hardware Mastery Award - will go to the team that the judges deem to have the most innovative and robust hardware solution to this year’s challenge. The team that receives this award really impressed the judges with their engineering process, design and performance on the field. The top team will receive a grant.  

Below is the rubric for the Hardware Awards.