At a Blended (ES+MS) event, if the list of Design Award candidates ends up being only MS teams, does this mean no ES Excellence award should be given?
In "Step 4 - Final Ranking of Award Winners" the Guide says, "In the case of the Excellence Award, the winner should come from the list of Design Award finalists that meet the criteria for Performance Awards and other Judged Awards." But no consideration is made to distinguish between ES and MS Design candidates.
Judges are not asked to maintain two lists (one ES, one MS), and generally make nominations for Design without considering whether a team is MS or ES.
For blended events it's quite likely that MS team notebooks and interviews are stronger than most ES teams. Thus it's likely that no ES team ends up on the short list for Design (3rd-5th grade vs. 6th-8th in interviewing and notebook skills).
Many Regions, including ours, consist of almost exclusively Blended Qualification events.