A judge interview is a short conversation at your pit. Judges listen for evidence that you did the work, learned from it, and did it together. This guide shows what they listen for and how to get every student ready to tell their part.
Spartan practice: Recall your own work, decisions, failures, learning, and collaboration. These questions and examples are prompts, not a speech to memorize or a required question order. Use real evidence, acknowledge uncertainty, and let the students involved explain their contributions. See the current interview rubric guide and student-centered policy guidance.
This is the packet’s local planning example, not a GRSF time limit. At an event, follow the Judge Advisor’s schedule and participation arrangements.
With two practice judges, switch who asks and who takes notes halfway through; both listen throughout. Allow a further 2–3 minutes for private scoring and comparison.
Prepare to talk about your work and respond to follow-ups. A judge is a curious engineer asking questions, not an audience. Answer what they actually ask.
Interview scores help judges sort teams at the start of deliberations, but an interview alone doesn’t win an award. Judges also use the Engineering Notebook and what they see at the event. A team can win only one Judged Award per event.
If you think part of your robot or strategy is truly novel, make it easy for judges to see. Put it on your Season Summary as a highlight, point to the notebook entries that show it developing, and be ready to talk about it in the interview.
The listen-fors are examples, not a checklist. A relevant reason, sequence of attempts, precise observation, or shared learning moment can provide concrete detail. No required number of redesigns, trials, named students, or equal speaking-time quota applies.
Let the student who knows a part explain how it works or why the team chose it. Alternatives can help explain the choice; no one must explain everything, and a list of alternatives is not required.
Tell your attempts in order: something that did not work, what you did next, and a moment (a test, a mistake, a conversation) that changed your thinking.
Describe what you tested, a concrete result, and how it informed your thinking. Counts, times, and measurements can help; a precise observation also counts. There is no required trial count in this interview rubric.
One student taught another a skill they could use, students add to each other’s answers, and you can share a moment you figured something out together.
Explain how students reached a shared decision. Resolving different ideas is one possible example; a disagreement is not required.
Explain how your team used an outside idea. Credit, adaptation, testing, and understanding are examples of evidence, not four required boxes. An official VEX starting point may be unchanged; using it does not automatically earn points or make this row N/A.
They aren’t separate scoring categories. They’re the evidence inside your answers:
Judges usually choose an interview opener from it. Prepare: for each highlight, know which students lived it, what happened in order, one number or moment, and which notebook entry shows it.
Prepare: the students who wrote the code can explain it in plain language, including a choice that changed after testing (criteria 1–3).
Prepare: for each source, what you changed, how you tested it, and why it works. That’s criterion 6. Crediting never counts against you.
No Season Summary? You still get the same interview, scored on the same rubric. Judges will just start somewhere else, usually your robot.
The part you built, coded, tested or wrote. “I rebuilt the intake after the jam tests.” This is criterion 1 evidence.
Decisions, disagreements and things you learned from each other. “Ana and I disagreed on the drive, so we ran both.” That’s criteria 4 and 5.
Write down who actually lived each story, so the right people are ready to tell it. These are starting points, not a speaking order. Saved in this browser only.
Coaches, mentors and parents can be present, but students answer every question. If an adult answers, judges will politely redirect. It isn’t held against the team. Coaches: stand back, and let pauses happen.
Say what you know, what you’re unsure about, and who or which record could clarify it. Honest uncertainty is better than a guess.
You may open your Engineering Notebook during the interview. Judges treat that as an engineer checking documentation. Use it when it helps you recall or show something. You don’t need to cite a page for every answer, and the criteria don’t depend on the notebook being there.
Criteria 4–6 stay “Not Yet Heard” or “Heard” even when the robot explanations are excellent.
Criterion 2 asks what you tried, what failed and what changed.
Testing without a count, time or measurement is “Heard,” not “Heard with Specifics.”
The person who did the work can give the specifics. Second-hand answers tend to stay general.
Practicing is fine. Answering a different question than the one asked isn’t.
GRSF doesn’t set an interview length, and events vary. Practice short conversations so you don’t rely on having lots of time.
One person reads a question aloud, and the students who did that work answer. Questions marked GRSF are the official rubric sample questions. The rest are Spartan practice prompts. Judges can ask in any order and with any wording.
Each topic has several wordings, and the randomizer picks a different one each round. Your team practices answering the idea, not reciting a script.
After a classroom mock, mark unasked or interrupted rows as Pending. Before selecting 0, ask the relevant official sample question: 0 means the team still could not address the row; 1 means a general answer; 2 means concrete details. Follow-up details count fully. These practice observations are not predicted official scores. Do not enter confidential event judging records here.