General Info

VEX competitions can be very engaging. We hold ours in our gymnasium where we can comfortably accommodate a lot of spectators. We try to create a friendly environment for spectators with reasonably priced refreshments, good visibility of the fields, and clear announcements of the winner of each match. Note: we serve only Dane Approved™ refreshments.

Register on Time

Anyone who has run a tournament knows that the sooner you have an accurate count of who is coming, the happier you are. Thank you to all who register early.

Digital Engineering Notebooks

All engineering notebooks need to be in digital format and submitted by 5:00 pm Mountain Time, Friday, October 25th.  Notebooks are submitted through the team's RobotEvents.com logins by one of the team's registered contacts- How to Submit a VRC Digital Notebook. Check your link to ensure it works properly. All teams will be interviewed by the judges, but only those who submit a digitial engineering notebook, on time, will be considered for the Excellence, Design, and Innovate awards. 

Competition Preparation

This event takes place early in the season; for many teams it will be their first competition of the year. We try very hard to keep the event moving smoothly. The best way for you to avoid problems is to arrive early enough to take care of any problems that may arise. All teams should come prepared to be inspected in a timely manner and to compete in their scheduled matches. Here are a few steps that every team should take to ensure that they are prepared.

1. Review the game rules and run through the inspection checklist about a week before the competition so that there is ample time for adjustments. The V-5 inspection checklist can be found here.

2. Check the official Q&A for the latest rule updates, changes, and clarifications.

3. Carefully read all of the information contained in the tournament posting on RobotEvents.com

4. Pack for the event the day before the day of departure. Here are a few items that you don't want to forget.
        Goggles/Safety Glasses
        Spare parts & tools
        Batteries and chargers
        Programming cable
        Power strip
        Laptop computer
       
5. Review the descriptions and criteria for the awards that are being given during the tournament. In particular the requirements for the Design Award figure into all of the judged awards that will be given at this tournament: Judges, Innovate, Design, and Excellence. There is a new Judging Guide out this year that you may want to take a look at. In particular, the Innovate Award is done a little differently than in previous years.

6. Prep for your interviews with the judges. Our judges will be practicing engineers who are willing to give up a Saturday to help with our competition.

8. Remember that safety comes first, please don't bring tools that pose a safety risk to your team, or others nearby as the venue is a tight fit. Also, remember no grinding or cutting in the gymnasium. We will have a station for grinding and cutting set up in the main entryway of the school.

9. Ensure that you have the latest version of firmware on your robot brain. Currently (June 2024) the most up to date version of VEXos is 1.1.3.

10. We will be using VEX Smart Field Control. Please ensure that you have your team number in your robot brain. See Smart Field Control – REC Library (roboticseducation.org) for details.

Participation and Consent Form

VEX Participation and Consent Forms only need be completed once per season. Instructions for the Participation and Consent form can be found at https://www.roboticseducation.org/documents/2018/03/participant-release-form.pdf/ (You may have to copy and paste this link into your browser.)

Skills Challenges

Per REC Foundation guidelines, all teams will be allowed 3 Programming Skills attempts and 3 Driver Skills attempts. Attempts of one type that are not used are not transferable. With two dedicated Skills fields, there should be adequate time for each team to complete their allowed runs if they use the natural breaks in the qualification rounds to make their skills runs. The Skills fields will close at the conclusion of the Qualifying Matches. With the large number of teams that we anticipate, it will be a long day, and we don't want to make it any longer than necessary for those who have long distances to travel to get home.

T Shirts

We did Over Under T Shirts last year and they were well received, so we are workiing on a High Stakes T Chirt for this year. When they are available we will post a link for preoder.

Grade Level: All

Skills Challenge Offered: Yes

Judging Format: Remote Engineering Notebooks