Unit 7, Lesson 7.11, pitch day. Print page 1 once per judge and hand it to them at the door. Print page 2 stapled into a packet, one packet per judge with the running order on the front. Print page 3, the audience scoring sheet, one per student. Print page 4, the award cards, on card stock and cut.
Page 1: The judge briefing (one page, send this two days ahead)
Thank you for coming
You are about to hear ten teams of middle school students pitch a business they built in seven class periods. They are not pretending. Their numbers are real numbers they calculated themselves. Their customers are real people they actually interviewed. Whatever they hand you, they made.
What they were taught
Every team's idea had to connect to at least one thing this course covered this year: food, money, family, home, clothing, or work. They found a real problem, generated twenty ideas, filtered them, interviewed three customers, calculated what one unit costs them to make and what they would charge, figured out how many they have to sell before they stop losing money, built something you can hold, and wrote a 60-second pitch in six parts:
- Hook (10 seconds): a question or a number.
- Problem (10 seconds): the problem, and who has it.
- Solution (15 seconds): what they make or do, and one differentiator.
- Who it is for (10 seconds): the customer, with a real quote from an interview.
- The money (10 seconds): unit cost, price, break-even.
- The ask (5 seconds): what they want, with a number.
Their poster has five panels in that same order: the problem, the solution, the customer, the numbers, the ask.
The format
60 seconds to pitch. 90 seconds of your questions. Then the next team. A student runs the timer and the timer is honored.
What we need from you, three things
- Score every team on the sheet. Four criteria, four levels. It takes about twenty seconds.
- Ask one question per team, inside the 90 seconds. One question. Not a speech. Three questions that work on any team:
- "What is your margin on one?"
- "Who already solves this problem, and why would somebody pick you?"
- "What is the first thing you would do with the money?"
- Say one specific true thing to each team before the next one starts. Ten seconds. Not "good job." Something you actually noticed.
Two things you should know
Your sheets are not the grade. The teacher scores these students on a rubric they have had in their hands since the first day of the project. Your sheets are read and they inform the score; they do not set it. So be honest.
Some students are delivering a written part read aloud by a teammate, or answering with a card in hand. That is a planned accommodation, not a mistake, and it is scored at full credit. If a student asks you to repeat a question, repeat it.
The awards
At the end you will pick four, one sentence each on why:
Most Useful. Best Numbers. Best Pitch. Most Likely To Actually Work.
The class also votes, and the two sets of winners are often different. That is a good thing and we say so out loud.
Page 2: Judge sheet (one per team, stapled into a packet)
Judge: ____________________ Team number: ______ Team: ____________________
Score
1 = not yet. 2 = starting. 3 = they did this. 4 = they did this well.
| Criterion | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The problem. I understood what problem this solves and who has it, inside the first 20 seconds. | ||||
| The numbers. They told me what one costs them, what they charge, and how many they have to sell to stop losing money, and the numbers made sense. | ||||
| The thing they made. There is a prototype or sample and I can tell what it is. | ||||
| The delivery. All three spoke, they finished inside 60 seconds, they looked up, and the ask was specific. |
Their answer to my question
My question was: _________________________________________________
They answered with (circle): a number | a real quote from a customer | a reason | a guess | "I don't know"
One specific true thing I will say to this team
Award nomination (circle any that apply)
Most Useful | Best Numbers | Best Pitch | Most Likely To Actually Work
Page 3: Audience scoring sheet
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________ Period: ______
You are working the whole period. Score every team. This sheet is collected and it counts.
The running order and your scores
1 = not yet. 2 = starting. 3 = they did this. 4 = they did this well.
| # | Team or idea | Problem was clear | Numbers made sense | There is a real prototype | Delivery: all three spoke, on time, looked up |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 | |||||
| 5 | |||||
| 6 | |||||
| 7 | |||||
| 8 | |||||
| 9 | |||||
| 10 |
Do not score your own team. Write "ours" in the row.
One thing I learned from watching somebody else
My four award votes
| Award | My vote | Why (one phrase) |
|---|---|---|
| Most Useful (I would actually use this) | ||
| Best Numbers (the money made the most sense) | ||
| Best Pitch (60 seconds, clear, I looked up) | ||
| Most Likely To Actually Work (this could really happen) |
One vote, defended with evidence
I voted ______________ for ______________ because they said ___________
Page 4: Award cards
Print on card stock. Cut on the lines. Fill in the team name by hand and hand them to the judges to announce.
MOST USEFUL
FACS Shark Tank
Awarded to: ______________________________
For: ______________________________________
Something a real person would actually use.
Date: ____________ Judge: ____________________
BEST NUMBERS
FACS Shark Tank
Awarded to: ______________________________
For: ______________________________________
The money made sense. Every number had a reason behind it.
Date: ____________ Judge: ____________________
BEST PITCH
FACS Shark Tank
Awarded to: ______________________________
For: ______________________________________
Sixty seconds. Six parts. Nobody looked at the floor.
Date: ____________ Judge: ____________________
MOST LIKELY TO ACTUALLY WORK
FACS Shark Tank
Awarded to: ______________________________
For: ______________________________________
This one could really happen.
Date: ____________ Judge: ____________________
Teacher key
Timing math. Decide this the night before from your team count and write it on the briefing.
| Teams | Per team | Pitch block | Fits in 25 minutes? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 2 min 50 s (60 s pitch, 90 s questions, 20 s swap) | 22 min 40 s | Yes, with slack |
| 9 | 2 min 50 s | 25 min 30 s | Just |
| 10 | 2 min 30 s (questions cut to 70 s) | 25 min | Yes |
| 11 or more | 2 min 20 s (questions cut to 60 s, swap 20 s) | 25 min 40 s | Only with two judges asking, not four |
Do not do this arithmetic in front of four adults.
What the teacher marks live, on the clipboard, in the twenty-second swap
Four marks per team and nothing else. Never mark during a pitch.
| Mark | Yes when |
|---|---|
| All three spoke | Or a filed accommodation covers a written part read by a teammate |
| At or under 60 seconds | The timer did not end it before the ask |
| The money was said out loud | A real number, audible, understood |
| A judge question answered with a number or a quote | Not a restatement of the pitch, not "I don't know" and nothing else |
These four marks plus the judge sheets are the evidence for Rubric 07 criterion 6. Fill in the rest of the descriptor after class.
Scoring the audience sheet
Complete, partial, or missing for daily work.
- Complete: every team scored on all four columns, one thing learned written, four award votes cast, and the defended vote naming something the team actually said.
- Partial: some teams unscored, or the defended vote names a feeling ("they were good") instead of something said.
- Missing: not turned in, or fewer than half the teams scored.
Say the rule out loud before team 1 pitches: every student scores every team, one row is a defended vote, the sheet is collected, and it counts. Twenty-seven students with nothing to do for 25 minutes is a behavior problem. Twenty-seven students holding a score sheet is a room full of judges.
The class vote versus the panel vote
Tally the audience sheets during Step 3 while the judges confer, or afterward. Read the class's winner in each category after the judges announce theirs. They are often different, and naming that out loud is part of the lesson: the room and the panel picked different winners, and that happens in real life every day.
If you cannot tally 27 sheets in three minutes, have two students who already pitched do it with a tally sheet on the board. That is a real job and it keeps two students busy.
The no-guest version
The panel becomes the teacher plus three students drawn from teams that have already pitched, at the judge table, with this same judge sheet. Run the pitches in two halves and swap the student judges at the midpoint: teams 1 to 5 are judged by three students from teams 6 to 10, then the panel swaps.
This version is not a lesser one. A student who has to defend a score out loud with a rubric in hand is doing harder work than a student pitching. Brief the student judges with the same three instructions: score every team, ask one question, say one specific true thing. Do not cancel pitch day for lack of guests.
The failure modes and their fixes
| Failure | Fix |
|---|---|
| A judge gives a two-minute speech | Stand up at second 80. They wrap. The briefing already said one question |
| A poster falls off the easel | Tape everything down at the end of Lesson 7.10 Day 2 |
| A team's third member is absent | Their written part is read by a teammate. Have that plan ready before the bell, not at the podium |
| The timer becomes a fight | A student runs it, not the teacher. Then the clock is just the clock |
| A team freezes completely | Ask them the first question yourself, gently, as a prompt: "Tell us the problem first." Then let the pitch restart from part 2 |
After
Thank the judges by name, out loud, in front of the students. Send a handwritten note from the class. Keep the list. The same people come back next year and they bring somebody.
[Sal: build the invitation list in September, not June. One administrator, one teacher, one parent, one business owner, asked in writing for 45 minutes on a named date, with this briefing sent two days out. One outside adult in year one is a success.]