Caption Contest at Showcase

The Badger Ballroom Caption Contest (BBCC) is an opportunity to show photos from the semester to friends and family, disguised as a sort of ballroom competition with photos instead of dancers. The audience will act like judges via their smartphones, and results will be tallied live by a computer system like one at a real competition.

During the intermission of showcase, a slideshow of photos from the past semester is presented, and the audience gets to pick their favorites! A winner is decided using the same scoring system as a real ballroom competition. It's a great way to reminisce while learning about the ballroom scoring system.

Spring 2026

Do you have a photo from the spring 2026 semesters that you want to show at showcase? Enter it in the contest!

Submissions are open until the day before the showcase at 9:00 PM. See the competition: Submissions - Spring 2026 - Caption Contest

Frequently Asked Questions:

• ​How do I enter?
  • Send David a message on Facebook or Instagram.
  • Alternatively, fill out this form: Caption Contest Submissions
  • Alternatively, send David an email, SMS message, or WhatsApp message. David has requested that his email address and phone number not be shared publicly.
• ​Do I have to write a caption for my photo?
  • No, but writing one may help your photo win.
  • The photo itself does not have to contain the caption; you can simply send it alongside your photo.
• What content is appropriate for a submission?
  • Remember that family and friends will be in attendance at the showcase. Keep it family-friendly.
  • David reserves the right to make the final call on whether a photo may enter the contest.
• How many photos may I enter into the contest?
  • The limit is 20.
• By what criteria will photos be judged?
  • It's like a ballroom competition: this is up to the judges and their personal tastes.
• Who are the judges?
  • Everyone in the audience at the live showcase can be a judge!
• How many winners will there be?
  • It's like a ballroom competition: every round, we'll eliminate roughly half of the entries until we have 8 entries or fewer remaining. Those entries are shown in the final round, in which judges will rank them.
• How do we decide which entries move to the next round?
  • It's like a ballroom competition: we use the skating system.
• When I am judging, how will I enter my judgement?
  • Every entry is assigned an identification number. This is like a ballroom competition, in which leads wear numbers on their backs.
  • The entries will be shown with their identification numbers on a projection screen for everyone to see.
  • A QR code will let you open the judging form on your smartphone.
  • In every round except the final, you will pick your top entries. You will be told how many to pick in that round. Everyone's picks will be aggregated to decide which entries proceed to the next round.
  • At the start of each round, the entries that remain will be shown again along with their identification numbers.
  • In the final round, you will rank the remaining entries. Everyone's rankings will be aggregated to decide the overall rankings.
• Will you actually verify that all submissions were from the spring 2026 semester?
  • No.

Past Caption Contest Winners

Fall 2024: Ballroom is Business: Submitted by Kaitlin Durnen

Fall 2025: Me subtly telling the judge to look at me during rounds: Submitted by Kevin P.

Technical Information

The judges enter their judgements into a Google Forms form that feeds into a Google Sheets spreadsheet that runs this Google Apps script: Scrutineering.gs. A comment at the top of the script explains how to set up the Google Forms form.

Every entry is assigned an identification number. The entries are shown in a Google Sheets presentation, in which each entry's identification number is also its slide number. For each round, the spreadsheet outputs the entry numbers that move to the next round. The Google Sheets presentation has this Google Apps script: UnskipByNumbers.gs. The script provides a menu option that pops up a prompt for the slide numbers. All slides except those entered in that prompt will be skipped, so the next time that the presentation is shown, only the remaining entries will be seen.