In the first round, teams are given two hours to solve an engineering problem and to prepare a 15 minute presentation at the end for the judges assigned to the teams. The problem is usually made so that there is no bias towards any of the engineering fields. And for the same reason, the three judges are also professors and graduate students chosen from different departments. At the end of the first round, each judge would have listened to four presentations, from which he or she is to choose the best one to go to the final round. In the final round, the three chosen teams have to give their presentation again in front of all three judges, and the winning team is chosen at the end.
Dinner is served during the break between the first and final round.
Second, to give them an early idea of what engineering is about before many of them have decided their majors, and to teach them the importance of team work and the chance to practice giving presentation to the public, which we think are the essentials for being good engineers. And lastly, to choose the team to represent MIT at the district contest. We have been successful for achieving these objectives, since many of the contestants turn out to be members or even officers of the MIT chapter, and also we have been doing well in the district contest. The organizers of the contest are responsible for making up the problem for the contest. They also need to arrange rooms for the teams to work on the problem for two hours, the room for the judges to hear the presentations, and the lecture hall for the gathering an the final presentation.