Highlighted text has been on the contest page since this website went live.
An entry's score is a combination of public voting and a panel of three judges. We use judges in an effort to try to make things fair. Consider the following scenarios:
Scenario #1 - An entry could win based on a contestant knowing a lot of people and convincing them to attend and vote. One contestant could have parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends able to attend and vote. Another contestant could only have parents able to attend and vote.
Scenario #2 - The public does not necessarily vote for the entry that is the most creative or well built. An 8-year-old girl might like rainbows and unicorns and vote for a set with those. A 6-year old boy might vote for a set that has dinosaurs. A person may love the color pink and vote for the set that has the most pink.
The judges look for specific criteria which help offset some of the public voting.
Every person that attends the contest picks their first and second favorite entry in each age category. The first pick and second pick must be different. This is so (as an example) a parent does not only vote for their child's entry. Ballots that do not follow this rule are not counted.
A first place vote is worth 2 points. A second place vote is worth 1 point. The highest possible score an entry can receive from the public is 2 times the number of ballots. In this example, we have 166 ballots, so the highest possible score is 332. The odds of one entry receiving everyone's first pick is basically impossible though.
Entry A received 39 first place votes for 78 points and 39 second place votes for 39 points. The total amount of points is 117. Divide that by 332 to get 0.352410.
Entry B received 36 first place votes for 72 points and 36 second place votes for 36 points. The total amount of points is 108. Divide that by 332 to get 0.325301.
It may seem odd that these two entries received the same amount of first and second place votes, but we saw many ballots alternate the first and second pick between these two. They were obviously favorites among many people!
If we used only the public votes, Entry A would be the winner.
Originality: Shows imagination and creativity. Does not contain major aspect(s) from LEGO designed kit(s).
Construction: Shows regard for stability and engineering. Good construction does not necessarily mean a large display with lots of bricks.
Consider the quality of the build and the use of its elements and space.
Presentation: General appearance and neatness. Design can be clearly understood (judges do not question what the participant is attempting to portray).
The three criteria are judged on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being low and 10 being high. 30 is the highest possible score an entry can receive from one judge. 90 is the highest possible score an entry can receive combined from all three judges.
Entry A
Judge #1 - Originality 10, Construction 8, Presentation 9 - total 27
Judge #2 - Originality 9, Construction 9, Presentation 9 - total 26
Judge #3 - Originality 10, Construction 9, Presentation 10 - total 29
Divide the combined score of 82 by 90 to get 0.911111.
Entry B
Judge #1 - Originality 8, Construction 8, Presentation 9 - total 25
Judge #2 - Originality 10, Construction 10, Presentation 10 - total 30
Judge #3 - Originality 9, Construction 10, Presentation 10 - total 29
Divide the combined score of 84 by 90 to get 0.933333.
If we used only the judges' scores, Entry B would be the winner.
Entry A has 0.352410 from the public and 0.911111 from the judges. Add those together to get 1.263521. To get a score that makes a little more sense, multiply 1.263521 by 50 to get 63.17605.
Entry B has 0.325301 from the public and 0.933333 from the judges. Add those together to get 1.258634. To get a score that makes a little more sense, multiply 1.25864 by 50 to get 62.932.
You can see Entry A just barely beat Entry B.