Why are High School Students not allowed to be on VEX-U teams? Why can’t they “play up” so to speak?
If that rule does preclude it, and if the High School Students are taking a college-level class (even at a local community college) would that qualify for those students to form a team and compete in VEX U?
This has already been answered.
[https://vexforum.com/t/answered-vex-u-and-vrc/38691/1)
Actually, no. That link said “Assume the student is taking a full load at both the high school and university level.” I asked if the high school student could be taking only one class at the college level.
I also asked WHY this rule exists. It seems arbitrary. I know that MATE, for example, allows kids to choose to compete at the college level if they so desire.
Sorry that I misunderstood you. I honestly have no idea the answer to your question. If you want some clarification on “why this rule exists” and if “the high school student could be taking only one class at the college level”, you should post your question in the official Q&A.
From the VEX-U rulebook:
Each Robot is still only allowed up to two (2) operators and one (1) coach.
a. Drivers MUST be post-secondary school individuals.
i. Any individual enrolled in a post-secondary school is eligible to be a driver.
ii. There are no restrictions on who can be a Coach in VEX U.
iii. Professionals not enrolled in post-secondary education are also NOT eligible to be a
driver.
There is no definition of how many college level classes are being taken in VUR6.a.i. Therefore, I would think as long as the student is actually receiving college credit (college transcript, college ID, etc.) for one or more classes, whether full time, part time, or dual-enrolled for college credit, they would be OK. They could certainly be a coach, no questions asked!
Thank you.
I’d still like to know WHY this is the case. Why can’t a high school team just choose to compete at a higher level?
If you think about it, if high schoolers competed at a college level then you would get a totally different group of people competed. In some cases it would not be fair to the high schoolers because they might not have the knowledge or level of understanding that the college kids do and it can be unfair to college kids as they would have less time on their hands to work on the robot because they have to juggle their time between school, work, other life things and robotics whereas high school kids can devote more time to robotics because they might have less responsibilities or less to do aside from robotics.
That makes no sense to me. High Schoolers would be at a disadvantage since they are younger and have less education - and probably less experience. But they could possibly overcome some of that with the possible extra time they might have. Makes no sense to me how it would be a disadvantage, really, to the college kids.
The problem is that some high school kids really want the extra flexibility - larger size, 3D printing, etc - and the rules basically make the whole team take a college class if they want to play the more challenging game.
You could have a team of 1 driver and n high school “coaches”.
I don’t believe the VEX/VEX-U structure is that simple. Looking at last year’s driver skills scores, the high school division where only one robot was allowed had higher scores than the VEX U division, where two robots were allowed. I think if the top high school teams competed in VEX U, then VEX U would be dominated by high schoolers.
Basically, VEX U is not necessarily stronger than high school VEX, where as a competition like MATE does get more competitive as you increase grade levels. While the overall game might be the same, the different rules are specifically tailored to the different age groups.
Prefacing this entire post with the fact this is MY personal experience from an undergraduate experience at a large, rigorous STEM university. Your mileage may vary, and I invite you to share your thoughts.
As a VEX U alum this is the main point I wanted to bring up and support. I would argue most high schoolers looking to compete in the U league are VEX veterans and seasoned at their craft, otherwise there would be no reason for them to “play up” a league. These veterans often graduate and should they choose to go to university often start teams should one not exist. Then the workload of a STEM field hits and the time you once had in high school to commit to your robot evaporates. Robotics is a finicky beast that requires many hours of time and effort in debugging and building, and time is not a simple handicap that can be overcome by an extra year or three of knowledge. This is coupled with the fact that a great deal of VEX U teams are self-funded with little to no support from the University (again, YMMV), meaning time has to be put in by the students themselves to recruit and fund what’s going on rather than spending that time early season developing ideas for the bots. I understand many high school teams undergo the same, and I’m not invalidating them, I’m just saying it’s quite common in U.
With that all being said, I 100% understand where you’re coming from in terms of wanting 3D printing and custom sensors, all the cool beans VEX U gets to play with. It’s my hope that those are soon allowed in the high school league as soon as possible, as they open every door under the sun for ingenious design.
This seems the most reasonable solution. It is almost painful to come up with an idea or solution only to find it would be impossible without extra support (thing 3D printing in hardware or co-processor in software) and then relegate yourself to a vicious cycle of envy towards the upgrade of Vex-U.
Frankly, if you want all the extra like off the shelf sensors and 3D printed parts at the high school level, you can just start an FTC team. They have all that. That said, there are some advantages to Vex as well. In real life, sometimes you do not have unlimited options so you need to find a solutions with a limited set of resources. Both Vex and FTC serve different purposes in training the student on how to come up with solutions.
With Vex, everything fits. That is really cool. You also need to use a special type of imagination to get the most out of the things that are available.
With FTC, the sky is the limit. There are much fewer restrictions but the cost to register a team and to compete in tournaments is higher and there are fewer teams.
With Vex, you learn C based programming and with FTC you learn Java.
The bottom line is there is something for everyone. I know there are schools and other groups that do both. Both are good. Find what you want and go with it.
FTC has it’s own warts. I just judged an FTC event last Saturday. The extent to which robot performance is de-emphasized is rather silly, in my mind. And the choice of controller means the code has to be in java.
VEX is old in the tooth and the choice of sensors is very limited. For many teams the limitation to using VEX gear is great - it levels the playing field. But seriously the sensors in FLL are better - at least you can do color sensing for lines on the field to do navigation. One of my goals as a coach is to teach kids how to use sensors to make decisions, navigate, and act. The other is that 3D printing and modelling are core skills and to NOT have those in the robotics program in high school is a serious dis-service to the kids.
I was looking for an option where select high school teams (the level I coach at) could have an OPTION to play in a VEX game that adds the VEX-U ability to 3D print parts and skip the alliance part of things to just build a robot whose performance on the field is what matters.
You could start your own competition program.
Create’s Open Division removes many of the Vex constraints but with the same game.
@Eric_J thank you for the link to the CreateOpen. I’m checking that out. It seems to have the criteria I am interested in!