Below are the final round scores based on judges' ranking from 1-5:
- An Aficionado's Guide to Espresso Blending (24)
- How to pull a beautiful "naked" triple shot (30)
- Quit Filling That Water Tank! (31)
- Putting it all together (44)
- Storage of Roasted Beans to Maximize Flavor (51)
Explanation: Twelve judges provided a numeric score from 0-6 for each entry and a ranking. The numeric scoring was principally for consistency checking a given judge's scoring (e.g., a judge scoring well outside the majority would have to defend their results); the ranking is what determines the winners. Ranking is used instead of the numeric score to avoid unfairly weighting more heavily those judges' scores that are higher.
For example, consider two judges submitting scores with the exact same ranking, but differing by one-half point for each contestant (e.g., judge A submits scores 2.0, 3.0, 3.25 and judge B submits 2.5, 3.5, 3.75 for contestants X, Y, Z). Both judges ranked contestants X, Y, Z the same, but if you simply added all judges' scores, the opinion of judge B will weigh more heavily in the outcome simply because he/she scored each entry higher. Summing the ranking (1, 2, 3 in this case) assures each judge's score is weighted the same.
Back to this contest's results. Since ranking is used, the
lowest score is the winner. Twelve judges ranking the same entry as 1st would award it a score of 12. If everyone agreed on the 5th entry, its score would be 60. Realistically judges differ slightly on their opinions, so the 1st and 5th entry rarely are scored to the extremes so nicely.
Fortunately the SwagFest judges were in wide agreement about the grand prize winner. Seven of the twelve picked Mike's entry as #1. The 2nd and 3rd entries were as close as can be with only ONE point separating them. With such a razor-thin margin, we triple-checked all scores. As an extra step after the tabulations were complete, judges re-certified their rankings to assure no transcription errors occurred before declaring the results publicly.
PS: David (Cannonfodder) had three entries in the final round. Only his highest scoring entry is shown in the ranking.
