THE AGGIE INVITATIONAL AT UC DAVIS

    10 October 2026 for Debate
    11 October 2026 for Speech

    DEADLINE
    4 Oct 2026
    ​NO REFUNDS AFTER THIS DATE
    ELIGIBILITY
    Open to middle and high school students
    LOCATION
    In-person at UC Davis
    Campus Map

    Information

    Debate at Davis is proud to partner with the Capitol Valley Forensic League (CVFL) to host two days of competition at the Aggie Invitational speech and debate tournament. The tournament will be held at UC Davis in Davis, California.

    What's the WiFi network? The ucd-guest network is public and open, but requires creation of an account and password, which takes a few minutes. Please do this when you arrive!

    THIS IS A SWING TOURNAMENT! That means you can choose to do either one or both days of competition.
    A "swing" is a tournament format where each day is a new beginning. At this tournament, debate is run on Saturday, and speech is run on Sunday. Your program (and students) can choose to do one or both days.

    How is this tournament different from a typical CVFL tournament?
    • It's at a college campus, so all students will need to submit a signed waiver.
    • Debate events will be single-flighted, so that we can offer elimination rounds on Saturday.
    • There will be elimination rounds in Varsity debate events (Novice will just have the typical 4 rounds)
    • The speech competition will be single-panel, with 3 prelim rounds (all published at 8AM) and a final so that we can end at a reasonable hour Sunday. Double-entry is allowed.
    • International and US Extemp are combined into one division.
    • In addition to CVFL Team Sweepstakes Awards, we will recognize the individual sweepstakes award winner with the title of Swaggy Aggie and a fitting physical award.
    • As mentioned, it's two days, where you can do one or both days.
    • CHSSA rules will be used, where relevant.

    Novice divisions?
    ​CVFL always allows middle schoolers to participate in our novice divisions. If they'd like the extra challenge they are also eligible to participate in varsity.
    In speech, sufficiently popular events will have dedicated novice divisions. All other speech events will be Open and will recognize a top novice competitor.
    Novice divisions in debate will NOT have elimination rounds; they will have the standard 4 CVFL rounds.

    Speech double entry?
    Entries may double-enter in speech, however, there is only one panel of speech -- that is to say that all speech events will run concurrently. So no triple entry in speech.

    Speech events offered?
    Sunday will offer CHSSA standard events, except that extemporaneous will combine NX and IX.

    Elimination Breaks
    ​There's a potential for a 3-1 not to clear in LD, which has 24 entries. PF is in the clear with 14, and may even have a partial quarterfinals if there are <8 teams with winning records.
    As usual at this tournament, only Varsity has elims. Novices are welcome to spectate QFs while they wait for awards. Judges obligated through QFs and any round in which their school have participants.

    Sweepstakes?
    We'll tabulate a sweepstakes team award for each day based on prelim round results. The overall winner will earn custody of the CVFL Sweepstakes Broom.
    We'll also plan to recognize the tournament's top individual sweepstakes points earner, summing their points earned in debate and speech events. That student will earn the title of Swaggy Aggie.

    Food
    Entry fees will include pizza for students.
    ​
    Judging?
    Debate rounds will be single-flighted.
    Speech will have no larger than 5 entries per room for non-Impromptu events and no larger than 6 entries per room for Impromptu.
    ​
    Optional Judge Training
    CVFL offers optional, online judge trainings via Zoom on Thursdays before our first 3 tournaments. Link here. For this tournament, it will be offered Thursday, October 8th at 7:30 PM. Experienced judges need not attend, but should note three things:
    • We strongly advise against telling the students the results of the round to keep the tournament on time and not discourage losing teams.
    • Each day, judges need to "check in" to be activated. Failure to check-in is effectively the same thing as not bringing a judge! We'll have a check-in computer in the judges lounge, or you canmessage your full name/school to [email protected] or text me and we'll activate you (checking in this way means "yes,I will definitely be in the room I am assigned at the round start time!"). You can also check in for other judges on your team this way if you know they will be there.
    • Speaker points will be used in debate as a tiebreaker -- the point scale is 25-30 (30=A+, 29=A, 28=B, 27=C, 26=D, 25=F). Tenths of points are allowed.
    • Bring a laptop for writing comments!
    Feel free to share the Zoom link with your judges.
    Alternatively, the recording from last year is here and the source slides are here.

    Parking? Maps? Etc?
    An interactive map of the tournament buildings is located here. A printable map is located on the sidebar.
    The main area for the tournament will be the Teaching and Learning Center, though we'll be using buildings throughout campus.
    Parking on campus is free on weekends (and this year we mean it, since we're not conflicting with the Pre-Health Conference anymore!). We recommend either parking in the Pavilion Parking Structure (corner of Hutchison and Dairy) or in Lot 27 (behind Hoagland Hall). Both are about 5 minute walks to the TLC.

    ​Parking/Home Base for Saturday vs Sunday
    Due to room availability reasons, the tournament will have two different "home bases" for each day.
    On Saturday, the "home base" will be Wellman Hall, near the Quad Parking Structure (free!).
    On Sunday, the "home base" will be the Teaching and Learning Complex, near the Pavilion Parking Structure (also free!).
    Wellman is closer to downtown if your squad wants to grab some tacos at Guad's, etc (and also close to the Union if your team wants to go bowling afterwards). Alternatively, we'll have pizza (and water, because it is likely to be hot!) provided to both students and judges for both days.

    Special Rooms
    • Saturday - Judges Room/Tabulation - Wellman 2
    • Saturday - Student Hangout - Wellman Courtyard (yes, it's outside, it will be a nice day).
    • Saturday Awards - TBA
    • Sunday - Judges Room - TLC 1010
    • Sunday - Student Room/Awards - TLC 1020
    ​
    ​Topics
    September/October 2026 Topics:
    PF: Resolved: The United States federal government should enact a moratorium on hyperscale data center construction.
    LD: Resolved: Outer space colonization is a moral imperative.


    ​    FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

    Q. Where do I park, where do I meet, when do I meet?
    Parking is free on weekends at UCD. We'd recommend either the Pavilion Structure parking garage or Lot 27.
    The main tournament building is the Teaching and Learning Complex. It's on the map on Tabroom, or you can Google Maps it.
    The schedule for both days is accessible in the Schedule tab of the sidebar.

    Q. What's the WiFi network?
    The ucd-guest network is public and open, but requires creation of an account and password, which takes a few minutes. We'd recommend doing that when you arrive.

    Q. Why are there debate elimination rounds after debate awards?
    Mainly so that we're not making teams without elim round participants wait for hours.
    The awards ceremony will include novice awards, as well as the participants/results of the first Varsity elimination round.
    Awards for advancing semifinalists/finalists/champions will be presented in the competition room that those respective rounds are being held in.

    Q. How long are judges obligated for in debate?
    All judges are obligated through awards. After awards, only judges from teams that are in the elimination rounds will be obligated. We will try to use UCD judges in those semi/final rounds where possible. If you want to judge in semis/finals without a team in those rounds, let us know.

    Q. Who's running this tournament?
    The people directly involved in running this tournament are Benjamin Morris (CVFL), Brock Dyer (CVFL), Prince Philip (CVFL), Jonathan Lainez-Calix (UCD), Petros Kougiouris (UCD), and Nipunika Bandara (UCD), as well as many other helpers from CVFL and UCD.

    ​Entry Price

    *Entry fees will include pizza for students.

    One speech event and parent is judging $70
    Two speech events and parent is judging $90

    LD and parent is judging $85
    LD & 1 speech event and parent is judging $105
    LD & 2 speech events and parent is judging $125

    PF and parent is judging $75
    PF & 1 speech event and parent is judging $95
    PF & 2 speech events and parent is judging $115

    One speech event and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $120
    Two speech events and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $165

    LD and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $180
    LD & 1 speech event and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $250
    LD & 2 speech events and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $295

    PF and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $150
    PF & 1 speech event and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $220
    PF & 2 speech events and parent is OPTING OUT OF judging $365

    Each person in a PF/Duo team would be responsible of providing their own judge, so one PF/Duo team would need to either provide two judges, both pay the judge fee, or one of each option.

    Registration will not be complete until payment is received.
    NOTE: We will charge set up fees if we have to create tabroom.com accounts for judges. It is recommended you do so on your own.

    Schedule

    Parking? Maps? Etc?
    An interactive map of the tournament buildings is located here. A printable map is located on the sidebar.
    ​On Saturday, the "home base" will be Wellman Hall, near the Quad Parking Structure (free!).
    On Sunday, the "home base" will be the Teaching and Learning Complex, near the Pavilion Parking Structure (also free!).
    Wellman is closer to downtown if your squad wants to grab some tacos at Guad's, etc (and also close to the Union if your team wants to go bowling afterwards). Alternatively, we'll have pizza (and water, because it is likely to be hot!) provided to both students and judges for both days.

    ​Special Rooms
    • Saturday - Judges Room/Tabulation - Wellman 2
    • Saturday - Student Hangout - Wellman Courtyard (yes, it's outside, it will be a nice day).
    • Saturday Awards - TBA
    • Sunday - Judges Room - TLC 1010
    • Sunday - Student Room/Awards - TLC 1020

    Tentative Schedule
    Pairings will be released 30 minutes prior to the round start time (10 mins before parli topic). We reserve the right to lag-pair if the previous round's results are not all in by that point. We'll accelerate the schedule where possible, but will respect the posted Lunch and Awards times.

    Saturday - LD/PF
    R1 Start - 8:20 AM
    R2 Start - 10:00 AM
    R3 Start - 11:20 AM
    ~~ LUNCH - Approximately 12:30PM -1:30PM ~~
    R4 Start - 1:30 PM
    Elim 1 Start - 3:00 PM
    ~~ Awards and Announcements of Elim 2 Participants @ 4:00 ~~
    Elim 2 Start - 4:50 PM
    Elim 3, if necessary, would start around 6:20 PM

    Sunday - Speech
    Prelim rounds in TLC, Wellman, and Hart. Finals will all be in TLC, space-permitting.
    ​R1 Extemp Draw - 8:30 AM
    R1 Speech Start - 9:00 AM
    R2 Extemp Draw - 10:10 AM
    R2 Speech Start - 10:40 AM
    R3 Extemp Draw - 11:50 AM
    R3 Speech Start - 12:20 PM
    ~~LUNCH~~
    Finals Extemp Draw - 1:05 PM
    Speech Finals Start - 1:35 PM
    Awards - 3:00 PM

    Drop Fee

    Drop fees will be the same amounts as the entry fee PLUS any fees the tournament charges us for late drops. Drop requests should be made to Victor and Nadia.

    Please do not drop out last minute to avoid being charged these fees.

    Contact Info

    Victor Rivas Umana
    Contact email:  [email protected]
    Nadia Budiman 
    Contact email: [email protected]
    Or [email protected]

    Registration Form

    To participate at this tournament, you are required to sign the parent letter form below. Make sure to do this before you proceed with the registration.
    ​PARENT WAIVER DOWNLOAD
    STUDENT INFORMATION
    If this is your first time competing, make sure to first create a Tabroom account here: https://www.tabroom.com/user/login/new_user.mhtml
    It's super simple and quick (<1 minute), but follow the guidelines here in case anything is confusing: ​https://docs.tabroom.com/Sign_Up
    PARENT CONTACT INFORMATION
    Your email address will be the one included when we send the logistics email.
    Max file size: 20MB
    EVENT SELECTION
    Got any questions? Please email [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
    ​JUDGE PROVISION
    Judge Training - The recording from last year is here and the source slides are here.

    ​Click here to complete the highly recommended Cultural Competency judge training course

    Signing up a judge without having a Tabroom account will result in us charging you for the set up fee.
    ​You can do this easily on your own by going to tabroom.com. It literally takes less than a minute.

    First time judging?
    This is a great collection of short videos that one of the leagues have put together to learn each event: click here.
    ​There are also these training cards available that include a summary of each event's rules and comments.​
    ​Click here to find other training and official certification resources. Or watch our Youtube playlist here.
    ​
    ​Tournaments encourage judges to have a paradigm on their Tabroom account, which can be a few sentences on your preferences of debating styles, etc. See here for example. It doesn't need to be this long, but make sure to add something before you sign up. For example: "I am a parent, please speak clearly and slowly and avoid technical jargon".​

    ​    More tournament resources can be found here.
    TERMS AND CONDITIONS

We would love to have you visit soon at one of our open houses.
Check our home page for the schedule!

School year Hours

M-F: 3:45 pm - 8:30 pm 
Sun: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Telephone

510-270-8480
510-470-0531

Email (preferred)

For more info email us at: [email protected]

Locations

Fremont: 200 Brown Rd #201, Fremont, CA 94539

Cupertino: 20432 Silverado Avenue Suite 211, Cupertino, CA 95014

Aborn Institute: 2804 Riedel Road, San Jose, CA 95135 

​​​​Dublin: Loving Tree Academy, 6693 Owens Dr, Pleasanton, CA 94588​​