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Pit Judges

This guide is for judges working in the pit area rather than at the arena boundary.

If you want a one-page handout for event day, use the Pit Judges Card.

Your job​

You are judging the parts of Aerospace Jam that are best evaluated through conversation and inspection, such as design, notebook, and any other pit-side rubric areas assigned to you. You may also be assigned a manual award vote.

What you will see​

After login, you will land on Judging. You will see only the rubric tabs you are allowed to score, the team list, and My Awards if you were assigned a manual award. Each team page contains the rubric items, a notes field, a no-show option, and a save button.

Before judging begins​

Before judging begins, log in and confirm that your assigned rubric tabs are visible. It is worth reviewing the rubric language so your questions match the scoring, deciding on a route through the pit area, and making sure your device is charged and easy to carry.

For each team​

For each team, find them in the pit area, open the team and rubric in ASJudge, and ask the same core questions you plan to ask every team. Listen carefully, inspect the materials you need to inspect, enter the score while the interaction is still fresh, add notes if something will matter later, and save before you walk away.

Staying fair​

The easiest way to stay consistent is to keep your interview structure stable. Ask the same foundation questions, let teams explain in their own words, and score against the rubric rather than against the most memorable team you saw earlier.

Awards​

If My Awards appears on your dashboard, you have been assigned at least one manual award. In most cases, you should finish your core judging first unless the lead says otherwise, then open My Awards, choose the team you believe should win, add a short rationale if that would be useful, and submit the vote. Your vote updates the award result inside ASJudge, so it is important not to leave assigned awards unfinished.

No-shows and corrections​

If a team is unavailable for a pit interview, first figure out whether they are temporarily away or whether the interview has genuinely been missed, then follow the lead judge's instructions before using the no-show option. If you make a scoring mistake, contact the head admin or judging lead promptly rather than trusting yourself to fix it from memory later.

What not to do​

Do not batch-enter a large pile of teams at the end of the day, do not compare teams out loud where students can hear, do not skip notes when a case will need follow-up, and do not let award voting crowd out your assigned rubric scoring.