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What is K-12 InVenture Prize and its competition?
K-12 InVenture Prize is an invention and entrepreneurship program at Georgia Tech that challenges students to identify real-world problems and design novel solutions through analysis, creativity, and the scientific method.
Over the course of the academic K-12 InVenture Prize and its partners host three competition events for student teams to showcase and present their process and products for judges to evaluate and provide feedback. The scores from judges ultimately decide whether or not the student teams move forward in the competition, and the feedback from judges help them iterate on their product and presentation. The competition empowers students with an authentic experience to learn invention and entrepreneurship skills.
Who can be a judge?
We invite and welcome community members to share their expertise and feedback to our K-12 student inventors. Judges typically include Georgia Tech faculty, staff, and students as well as individuals from industry partners, but by no means does that mean that judges are exclusively from those groups. You can be a judge, too!
Why judge?
Judges are essential to the
(1) individual impact on K-12 students' learning experience and
(2) community impact on helping grow the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs!
Judges bring their expertise to evaluate student inventions and contribute direct feedback for students to take into consideration as they iterate on their inventions. Judges also provide the unique experience for students to converse with and present to professionals with whom they can become inspired to become or learn more about.
What should judges expect?
Before Judging
Judges will receive our competition rubric with categories and scoring guildelines, with which they are expected to read over prior to judging.
Judges will also receive an e-ballot from RocketJudge. K-12 InVenture Prize judging is powered by RocketJudge and can be accessed through a web browser. The RocketJudge platform provides judges with their assigned teams and sliding scales for each of our categories/criteria, reflecting our rubric.
Judges will not have access to their ballots prior to the judging period, but we do email the links in advance for judges who want to start judging at the very beginning of the judging period.
While Judging
There are two modes of judging, online and in-person, depending on the event and location.
Online Judging
Judges have the flexibility to judge at their convenience over the course of the judging period (approx. 1 week). We typically find that judges take approximately 1-2 hours to evaluate all 10-15 student projects. We welcome and appreciate judges who are open to evaluating more projects.
In-Person Judging
Judges are required to attend in-person to the event location. In-person judging provides judges the unique opportunity to converse with student teams and ask questions about their projects. In-Person Judges typically spend 2 hours to evaluate their student inventions, depending on the number of student teams assigned and the event schedule.
After Judging
The K-12 InVenture Prize program team review all of the judges' scoring and feedback. For the Mock Pitch event, the program team synthesizes the scores and feedback and sends it to the teachers for dissemination to their students. For the Qualifier and State Finals events, the program team deliberates using the judges' scores and feedback to determine the winners that move forward to State Finals and Nationals competition, respectively. State Finals judges are welcome to stay for the Awards Ceremony. All winners will be posted on our website.
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When can judges participate?
Details for each event will be sent closer to their respective date, which may be subject to change. -- Updated March 2025
NOV
Mock Pitch Review
Mock Pitch is designed for inventors to pitch their idea and receive preliminary feedback. Inventors create a short elevator pitch video for judges to evaluate and provide constructive feedback about their invention design and concept. After the judging period, teachers will be provided the judges scores and feedback to disseminate to student teams. Mock Pitch is intended as a part of the invention design and iteration process, and inventors do not need a completed project or prototype to participate.
| 11/17 - 12/03 | Mock Pitch Review | Online |
FEB
Qualifier
The Qualifier event is a required event in which inventors must participate in any of the three qualifier events, depending on location. The Qualifier events include the Savannah Qualifier, South Georgia Qualifier, and Online Qualifier.
| 02/05 | Savannah Regional Qualifier | In-Person | |
| 02/13 | South Georgia Regional Qualifier | In-Person | |
| 02/11 - 02/16 | Online Qualifier | Online |
MAR
State Finals
State Finals is K-12 InVenture Prize’s culminating competition event for invention teams advancing from the Online and Regional Qualifier events. Students are expected to have a tri-board detailing their invention process and present their invention and design process to judges in-person. Top teams in their division or specialty categories will receive prizes at the Awards Ceremony later in the day.
| TBD | State Finals | In-Person |