First of all, I appreciate what Ben and his brother have contributed to the VEX IQ community so far, I have seen him discussing robot design in discord servers. You are 100% helping to level up the game, making it more competitive at all levels. Showing the world what’s possible, same goes to some of the skills runs we have seen at worlds. I would have never thought those are possible. My eyes were wide open when I saw those.
I have been talking to some of our new student’s parent lately, saw how struggled they were last season without any coaching. They were independent last season, and were surfing the internet like crazy trying to get some ideas and designs so they could have some clues what to do. Ben’s solution allowed them to be where they are today, made to worlds by their own hard work. For them, Ben’s hard work is definitely super helpful and probably a lifesaver.
When I started Caution Tape, I would have never thought we could be entering world stage like this. My first VEX Worlds experience was 2019 as head coach for a different club, I was clueless about what to do, shocked about how awesome VEX Worlds is. Thanks for all the community members who have contributed to it and make it more fun for the kids. That’s why we decided to started actively contribute back to the community. I’m sure that’s the intention from Ben and his brother. BTW, we were both in Math division back in 2019. LOL.
We all love VEX, indeed, I love it so much that we only teach VEX at our club. I even wrote a long blog comparing VEX, FLL and WRO, and not surprisingly, VEX comes to the top of my ‘unbiased’ comparison. I wish VEX existed when I was a kid, I want to be part of it just to play the game. I want to solve the puzzle myself and tell the world, it’s done. This is my way of solving this, sharing that happiness and enjoyment with the world. But I cannot, why? Because I’m a coach, I’m obliged for taking care of my students’ future, light up their sparks in their heart. After all, my time has passed, it’s their time now.
In an ancient China, there is a saying. Give man a fish, you feed him a day, teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a life time.
I’d like to call out to Ben publicly, if you would like to work with Caution Tape together to create some public technical resources for the VEX IQ community to improve their game level, you know where to find me. Let’s do it together, and help the community to keep growing, so more kids could have more fun playing the BEST robotics competition on the planet.