FTC Coach Corner: Preparing for January Tournaments & Advancement Events

As many teams transition from league play into full tournaments, it’s normal to realize there’s a whole layer of event prep you haven’t touched yet—especially around judging. Here are a few key steps to help your team feel confident and ready for January events.

Before anything else, confirm your team has completed all requirements needed to participate in a tournament— registration payments, signed waivers, and coach screenings. 

Many teams get delayed or stressed on event day because this wasn’t completed early. Double-check now and save yourself headaches later.

Tournament judging isn’t the same as what teams see in league meets. To understand award structure, expectations, and the criteria judges use, make sure your team reads Section 6: Awards section in the Competition Manual.

The portfolio is often the single biggest difference-maker at tournaments. Encourage your team to:

• Proactively update and refine their content

• Highlight clear engineering decisions and strategy

• Check that the Inspire-required elements are easy to find

Many teams also publish their portfolios online. Studying these can help students understand effective organization, tone, simplicity, and focus—not to copy, but to calibrate expectation

Browse examples of other teams protfolios by clicking the button below! 

A common January pitfall is teams trying to stretch themselves across every award category. Instead, help your students identify where they genuinely excel and focus their messaging there.

For context: The Inspire Award rewards well-rounded excellence across the program, and teams who are strong in multiple areas naturally tend to score well. However, this doesn’t mean a team must convincingly compete for all seven awards. What matters is that a team shows meaningful strength across the three major award areas, rather than trying to force accomplishments that don’t reflect their true capabilities.

Encouraging students to set realistic, achievable goals—based on what they actually did this season—often leads to clearer judging conversations and stronger overall performance.

The three areas judges consider are:

• Machine, Creativity, Innovation (MCI)

  • Related awards: Design, Control, Innovate

  • Focus: robot engineering, programming decisions, and technical problem-solving

• Team Attributes (TA)

  • Related awards: Connect, Reach, Sustain

  • Focus: community engagement, partnerships, and meaningful STEM impact

• Think

  • Focus: how clearly the Portfolio communicates the team’s engineering journey — including decision-making, use of the engineering process, lessons learned, and how the team approached design throughout the season

Rather than trying to “hit” every award, teams benefit from reflecting honestly on questions like:

• Which MCI best represents the work we’ve actually done?

• Which TA award aligns with the impact we created this season?

• Does our portfolio clearly communicate our engineering story and decisions?

Helping students recognize their strengths—and build their award materials around those strengths—leads to more authentic storytelling, clearer judging sessions, and ultimately stronger outcomes.