2009 ASCE/AISC National Student Steel Bridge Competition

Hosting, Judging, and Competing Information

PDF Version:  2009HostGuide.pdf

 

Introduction

Host & Judges Guide

General information

Eligibility Requirements

Site Layout

Display Judging

Equipment

2009 Rules

2009 Scoring Spreadsheet
v00: 8/15/08

ASCE Paper Comptetition Clarification

Judges Training Presentation
posted 2/12/07

Official Rules Clarifications

Historical & Other Information

Common Rule Violations:
9.2.3
9.2.10
9.2.5/6
9.2.11
9.2.12
9.4.1
10.2.4
10.2.7-9
11.2.5
11.2.3/13
11.4

 Commentary on the Rules

Steel Selection

Fabrication Guide

 

 

Rule 7.1 :  Display Judging

Display judging has always been a bit confusing since the rules introduced the name and poster components of the competition.  This section of the host guide is designed to help regional hosts and their judges learn about how the process is to be conducted.

Display consists of three parts:  appearance, name, and poster board.

The rules do not give any specific guidance on how to combine these three components to arrive at a final ranking of the participating bridges.  The scoring spreadsheet has the spreadsheet and judges forms used to determine display scores and ranking at the national competition.

Appearance:  At the national competition (where 40+ bridges are ranked) six members of the rules committee judge the appearance.  Each of the judges determines their favorite and least favorite bridges.  The least favorite is given a score of 1 and the best is given a score of 10.  Bridges that don't show up are given a score of zero.  All other bridges are scored in relation to the favorite and least favorite.  The judges scores are then averaged and the bridges are ranked by average score.  Any ties are broken by vote of the committee.

Name:  There has been lots of discussion over the years about how to judge appropriate names for display on the bridges.  Several variations have been tried and found to be unmanageable.  Consequently, the only standard that has been found is the school name listed on the ASCE Student Services website (http://content.asce.org/student/websites.html) for each school.  The display judges must check to see that the correct name is used and that it meets the size requirements.  Note that ALL letters in the name are to meet the size requirement.  If an entry does not appear to meet the requirement, all the judges must agree that a violation has occurred or a majority vote is taken.  If it is deemed that the name requirement is not met, then a penalty is assessed.

Poster Board:  The rules list some required components for the poster.  Judging of posters, at nationals, is also done on a scoring basis.  Zero is given to a bridge that does not present a poster.  A score of 1 is given to a poster that barely meets the criteria, and an exceptional poster gets a score of 5.  Other posters receive a score between 1 and 5.  Read rule 7.1.3 for a listing of the criteria for the poster.  The scores of the judges are averaged to get a poster score for the bridge.

Combining the Scores:  The rules do not give any specific guidance on how the components are to be combined.  It is generally recognized, however, that the display score should not be solely based on appearance since there are two other requirements to the category.  For the past few years a weighting formula has been used at nationals. 

<Final Display Score> = <Display Score> + (<if name spec met then 5 else 0> + <poster score>) / <Weight Divisor>

The bridges are ranked based on both the <Display Score> and the <Final Display Score>.  The <Weight Divisor> is manually manipulated so that no team's final ranking is affected by more than 10 places (out of the 40 plus bridges entered) as a result of the name specification or poster scores.

Check out the Example Display Scoring for the ASCE Polar Ice Cap Regional Student Conference by clicking here!