General Info

Welcome to the CREATE Foundation U.S. Open Robotics Championship.  The U.S. Open has grown into one of the largest robotics tournaments in the world and we hope you can join us this year. 

We expect the 2020 U.S. Open to be the biggest and best yet. Regular season tournaments from around the world are qualifiers for this signature event.  We wish all teams the very best of luck.

Domestic Team Capacity - International Team Capacity
Please note that this event is geared toward 1/2 domestic teams and 1/2 international teams.  The current capacity is set to the domestic team capacity.  All/most all domestic teams will register first.  Then we expect the other 1/2 of the teams to be international teams.  We are humbled by the number of teams that want to participate and we wish we could take every team.  Unfortunately that is not possible, even if we were to allot all spots to domestic teams.  Our goal is to host an event with the opportunity for deep cultural exchange.  International teams are a critical component to this goal.  Our hope/goal is for the remainder of the spots to fill with international teams.  If we do not reach that goal, we may open registration up to domestic teams later in the season.  If you are a domestic team and you are unable to register due to domestic capacity having been reached, feel free to check back from time-to-time.  We do not have exact dates of when we might open up additional spots for domestic teams, but if we do, it will be before March 1st, 2020.  If you have qualified for the event and received an invitation, and would like to be put on a preferred wait list, do the following two things:  a) Put your team on the wait list, and b) Email Support@CREATE-Found.org with your request to be put on the preferred wait list.  Include your team number, the date, name and ID of the event you qualified at.  We will take domestic teams of this preferred wait list first, should domestic team registration be opened up again. 

Alliances
If we reach our goal of 1/2 domestic and 1/2 international teams, we will adopt a unique assignment of teams to alliances.  Each alliance will be made up of one team whose first language is English and one team whose first language is NOT English.  This alliance format is consistent with our philosophy of creating the opportunity for deep cultural exchange.  We hope every student leaves having made a friend from another country. 

There are many distinct tournaments in this multifacted event.  This is the VEX IQ - Elementary School Tournament.  If you are looking for one of our other tournaments:: VRC- High School, VRC Middle School, VEX IQ Middle School, CREATE Jr, or the Open Program Division, please return to the main RobotEvents page and select the proper event.

Please be advised that you will have 3 weeks from the date of your qualifying tournament to register for the U.S. Open.  Once registered, you will have 3 weeks to pay.  Teams that miss the payment deadline will be moved to the wait list.  If any teams are invited off the wait list they will be notified, at the earliest, mid February.

Tournament Code of Conduct

CREATE Sponsored events require teams to understand and accept a Tournament Code of Conduct. This Code of Conduct will help clarify the role of students and adults at CREATE events. Please be sure to read through the entire CREATE Tournament Code of Conduct and be sure that all members of your team understand it as well. We believe these simple rules will help everyone have a great experience.

Video Judging

Video Judging will be used this year for this division. Video judging requires each team to submit a video based upon the guidelines found here. Be sure to read the Team Guidelines thoroughly. Feel free to review the two event partner documents too. This will give you a clear understanding of how video judging works and how your team will be graded.

All teams are highly encouraged to submit a team video. Many awards including Excellence require the submission of a video. Teams with superior videos will be first interviewed in their pit area and then potentially invited to face-to-face interviews. If your team advances to the face-to-face interviews an invitation will be placed on your pit table Wednesday morning. Be sure to bring your engineering notebook in case you are selected for a face-to-face interview.

Submit video by filling out this VEX IQ Elementary School Video Judging Google Form.

Video Judging will also be used for those teams participating in the STEM Research Project.

Submit STEM Research videos by filling out this VEX IQ Elementary School STEM Research Project Judging Google Form.

Submission Deadline: March 10th, 2020

Engineering Notebook

ALL teams are strongly encouraged to submit an engineering notebook.  These will be collected at registration and all notebooks will be reviewed.  This should be done whether or not you have submitted a video.  A review of your engineering notebook will be the first step in potentially earning a face-to-face interview geared at determining the Design Award Winner.

Waiver

REC Participant Release Forms (found HERE) will be required for 2020.  (We will no longer have a specific CREATE Waiver for this tournament.  Online waivers will be accepted.) 

Wait List

Teams on the wait list that have qualified for the U.S. Open will be given preference over non-qualified teams.

Qualified teams on the wait list will be invited in the order they have added their teams to the wait list, not the date of their qualification.

Teams on the wait list from schools/organizations that have reached the individual school/organization team maximum will be invited last off the wait list.

Invitations are NOT a Guarantee of Participation

Often, tournaments within the U.S. Open will fill before our registration deadline.  When it fills, there are normally many active invitations outstanding. But once filled, these invitations become null and void.  When a tournament fills, registration is permanently closed to domestic teams.  We do not expand capacity and no teams will be taken off of the wait list.  Even if teams cancel, those spots are not opened back up.  The reason is that we set our capacity about 10% over our optimal capacity in anticipation of a certain number of teams canceling.  This is something that happens every year.  Essentially we are anticipating, even counting on, a few teams canceling, thus we do not open up spots.  We feel this is the fairest way to handle the registration process and precludes the necessity to continually check back.  We hope this finality allows for clear planning on the part of all teams.  We are sorry that we cannot accommodate all the teams that want to attend, and are humbled by the great number of teams that do  attend.  We also want to ensure a world class event, and limiting registrations to an optimal number of teams is an important step in accomplishing this goal. 

Capacity Changing Over Time

If you continue to monitor this division, you may find that the overall capacity may increase over time.  This is to accommodate international teams.  We reserve a certain number of spots for international teams and hold those spots for them, as often they are not able to commit until later in the year.  If we did not hold them, most divisions would fill with U.S. teams only, thus greatly reducing the international flavor of our event.  Our desire is to be fair to all teams, while balancing our desire to create an environment where cultural exchange is possible and encouraged.