submitted by Nichole Smith, Montverde Academy
The Montverde Academy robotics team won first place at the Showdown in the Devil’s Den V5 Competition at Winter Haven High School. The team also received the Excellence Award, qualifying them for the 2025 Florida High School Event Championship on February 23.
The Excellence Award recognizes overall excellence in both the Judged Award and the Performance Award categories and incorporates all criteria of the Design Award, plus the added component of a team’s on-field performance at the event. The Excellence Award is required if judging occurs at an event.
Key Criteria for the Excellence Award:
- Be at or near the top of all Engineering Notebook rubric rankings with a fully developed notebook.
- Both the team interview and Engineering Notebook demonstrate independent inquiry from the beginning stages of the design process through execution.
- Be a candidate for consideration for other judged awards.
- Demonstrate a student-centered ethos.
- Exhibit positive team conduct, good sportsmanship, and professionalism.
- The Engineering Notebook is consistent with the qualities demonstrated in the team interview and robot design.
- After Qualification matches, be ranked in the top 40 percent of teams at the event in Qualification match rankings.
- At the conclusion of the Robot Skills Challenge matches, be ranked in the top 40 percent of teams at the event.
- After the Autonomous Coding Skills Challenge matches, be ranked in the top 40 percent of teams at the event with a score above zero.
Congratulations to the MVA robotics team on this fantastic achievement and best of luck at the state competition!
