There are some insinuations about the judges that I don't think are fair. Keep in mind that many of the judges are engineers at the top levels of motorsport or within their industries, they have a love for FSAE (remember they don't get paid for this and pay their own hotel rooms, flights, rental cars etc), and many are FSAE alum. They have a high level of respect for the students and their efforts (those who don't are not invited back). Most if not all judges spend considerable amounts of personal time re-familarizing themselves with the rules, reading design reports of their teams and teams from other ques to get an idea of the level of competition. They know the students take it seriously and they are just as anxious and afraid of screwing up as the students.

There is perhaps some disagreement among all the parties involved what the design judging event should be exactly, and some judges can be led astray or force conversations of the micro when 20,000 manhours is condensed into 40 minutes demands more overview. It's important however that judges get a feeling for depth as well as breadth of knowledge, and sometimes questions are asked as much to see the reaction and the level of preparation as they are asking for a value. It's still in my mind the teams responsibility for redirecting the conversation back on track or to indulge the judge with answers to obscure questions. Answers can be cleverly answered using the teams design goals as part of the calculation which can sometimes right the ship. Ultimately it's a competition against your peers and that judge will do his best to grade all teams on the same scale. The determination of who goes on to secondary is a group decision and unanimous agreement by all judges in a que is very typical, which eliminates some of the impact of a single 'bad' judge.

The head design judges do a tremendous job, and the amount of work that goes into the event and the preparation by all the judges is significant. I know that the head judges are also quite open to input and try to improve the process and make it more objective each year.