2489: Early Deadlines for Notebook Submission and Innovate Form : Robot Events

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2489: Early Deadlines for Notebook Submission and Innovate Form

JHAWK

31-Jan-2025

Hello,

This question is a follow up to Q and A 2318, 2394, and 1853.

Q and A 2318 states:

All materials for a given event should be included in the Engineering Notebook by the stated deadline. The Innovate Award Submission form includes the date of submission as well as the event name.

2394 states:

In this scenario, a team should list all 3 events on one Innovate Award Submission form.

and 1853 states:

Only one feature or attribute should be submitted for the Innovate Award. Teams that attempt to stack multiple features or attributes into a single submission should have their submissions removed from consideration.

Q and A 1853 seems to state that teams may only submit 1 form. 2394 states that teams must list multiple events on 1 innovate form. And 2318 states that teams must submit their innovate form when a competition's notebook is due.

Does this mean that after a team submits their notebook for a competition months in advance (such as worlds) they are not allowed to continue to update their innovate form for any competition that requires digital notebooks in-between? If they were to change their innovate form, this would seem to disqualify them from innovate at the competition with notebooks due months in advance per Q and A 1853 and 2318. If a team were to have a different innovate form for events later in the season this would also seem to violate Q and A 2394. Is this interpretation correct?

This seems to put teams who qualify for worlds earlier in the season at a massive disadvantage both for worlds and other competition later in the season that don't have their notebooks due until after worlds notebook submission (not to mention teams who submit their innovate forms earlier are less likely to know what will be considered innovate later in the season)

Thank you in advance

Answered by Competition Judging Committee

3-Feb-2025

Does this mean that after a team submits their notebook for a competition months in advance (such as worlds) they are not allowed to continue to update their innovate form for any competition that requires digital notebooks in-between? If they were to change their innovate form, this would seem to disqualify them from innovate at the competition with notebooks due months in advance per Q and A 1853 and 2318. If a team were to have a different innovate form for events later in the season this would also seem to violate Q and A 2394. Is this interpretation correct?

Teams should plan that their Engineering Notebook will be evaluated sometime between the stated deadline for the event and the event day itself. Teams are allowed to continue to update their notebooks past the deadline, but there is no way to specify when an individual notebook is evaluated within that time window.

Changing the Innovate Award submission, like modifying or adding any other sort of additional content, should be done with the understanding that there is no guarantee that the judges will have evaluated the later version of the notebook going into in-person judging the day of the event.

This seems to put teams who qualify for worlds earlier in the season at a massive disadvantage both for worlds and other competition later in the season that don't have their notebooks due until after worlds notebook submission (not to mention teams who submit their innovate forms earlier are less likely to know what will be considered innovate later in the season)

At any event involving remote judging where Engineering Notebook are due in advance, is likely going to have a range of time in which some notebooks are evaluated earlier than others. This is unavoidable due to the large quantity of Engineering Notebooks to be evaluated.

Disparities regarding submission deadlines are mitigated by the fact that final determinations of award winners are done at the event. This includes, if necessary, additional reviews of the Engineering Notebook and Innovate Award submissions by judges.