Nor Cal FLL has a 2 tier tournament system and the following advancement criteria is used at all tournament levels. The criteria for advancement has not changed – it is based on the Champion’s Award criteria and published by FIRST here.
Teams advance from a tournament based on being Well Rounded FIRST LEGO League teams with good demonstrated FLL Core Values particularly around Gracious Professionalism. Teams that advance will be solid performers in all equally-weighted judging aspects of FIRST LEGO League:
- Robot Design
- Project Presentation
- Core Values
- Robot Performance Score (best score out of 3 rounds, practice round scores do not count)
The percentage of advancing teams remains the same across all qualifier tournament, the typical target is 30%, however the exact rate will be announced every season.
At a tournament, the judges will rank each team [1 to N] according to its placement in each of the judging categories. The sum of the rank will be used to provide an effective overall rank for the teams – this rank will not be discussed or disclosed – it is only used in the judging process for advancement.
The judges will then deliberate over this ranked list of team to break any ties and produce a list of teams that will advance from that tournament.
Note that it is likely that there will be teams that win awards that do not end up advancing, just as it is possible that a team will advance without winning an award.
The only information that is made public to anyone beyond the judges is : Robot Game Rank, Award Winners and Advancing Teams.
None of the Judge ranks are made public per FIRST requirements.
A final note: FLL Core Values are a part of all judged awards. Teams (and their support crew of parents, friends, mentors, coaches, etc) observed by the judges and tournament observers and other volunteers to be showing poor FLL Core Values may find that the team is penalized. Judges can and do disqualify a team from advancing or winning any core award (including robot performance) due to poor demonstration of the FLL Core Values.
Skipping, either directly or indirectly, any of the aspects of the FLL program would make the team ineligible for any of the Core Awards including performance as well as ineligible to advance.
This may includes situations where the judges determine that the coaches/mentors have had too active a role in the team’s activities; essentially seeing that the work is not that of the kids.
Similarly, coaches, mentors, parents, etc failing to abide by the Coaches’ Promise may similarly negatively impact their team.