We’ve been through a rough time with vex this past season and missing out on worlds. Most of us are in quarantine and I’m guessing quite a few of us are already working towards next season’s robot but being in such uncertain times I wanted to see what you guys thought next season could look like.
Personally I’m worried we won’t have competitions next year or if we do they’ll be limited or pushed back. I see that people wanna get things back to normal but vaccines seem far out and big gatherings seem like something people will avoid till late after this all ends. This could mean less about VEX as a company and more about schools or teams themselves choosing not to host competitions or to go to them. I’d hate to miss my last year of vex but maybe some of you have alternate predictions of what could happen.
If so I’d love to hear them.
I also think that this year will start out slow. Unfourtunatly, it seems like it will be hard for people new to vex this year because coaches will not be able to teach them as well without the “hands-on” element. This year will take all of your communication skills to succed, good luck all.
In our region, EPs are preparing for the new season. We are considering options to reduce risks for all involved. Until this virus is under control, you can be sure events will not appear like this past season. Lots of creative ideas are being bounced around and to be sure, no one wants to put anyone at risk.
In Delmarva we are starting to plan ahead and there are a few VRC teams that are building from home.
On the VIQ side we don’t start events until November (so like the start of the second term). We are going to plan to schedule them, but I’m looking at reducing the event sizes and have only the roboteers and coaches play, not the entire family. This makes a mess of our Friday Pizza and Robot events, but we will see.
Most of the Delmarva VRC events happen later in the season (like January) and we’ll still try to keep these up to speed.
Programming training got a lot easier with VEX VR to use that as the platform and then doing specific robots later in the season.
We’ll all adapt, it will just be different than the last years has been.
the season is going to start slow but this allows researching and perfecting your design either building or on paper. Safety is the big priority so most competitions will be slow, some might cancel or delay. In Ohio I haven’t heard a whole bunch about competitions but we are still working on robots and all that. It will not be “normal” but when the season starts to get into high gear then it hopefully gets back to normal
I’m thinking that tournaments may only consist of a few teams, maybe 10 to 20, and vex will end up lowering the amount of teams that a state qualifying tournament must have.
Also RIP signature events
I would think the only changes would be less staff at the event and no outside visitors and audience. The teams would still play just separated further than usual.
So @RNA and you should start a thread " You are an Event Partner, describe your ideas for a Signature event" I’m going to assume the forum would come up with some really good ideas. Like a large flat screen for each team, so their families watching them can be there as a tele-presence. Like a room full of Brady Bunch squares.
well. they can live stream and all that but the main issues is the teams. there are so many teams at sig events how will they do certain distancing or all that. At Kalahari Sig I think in HS there was a ton of teams. So that would be the big issue along with volunteers as well
I expect there won’t be many events until well into the next school year, and even then we’ll have to make them a lot smaller. 10-15 teams instead of 30-45, so that pits can be spaced properly. No audience, like they had planned to do at many states events. Masks, Gloves, no shaking hands.
But it does create an interesting opportunity to make a very competitive bot before you go to your first competition.
I am optimistic that we might have semi-normal competitions if schools choose to host semi-normal sports events. Without an audience competitions would still be pretty fun but it would suck to see the number of teams able to attend cut down.
I see this also happening too. Being in Louisiana, where it has been super bad for us, virus-wise, I don’t see us having many if any competitions this year if stuff doesnt change soon
Although pragmatic approach, you can offer ideas with the information you have learned over the last couple of months. What do you think an event should look like? What are the elements you must have? What can we do differently?
For example, what should robot inspection look like?
Well yes of course. What I mean to say is that until we know what is truly going to happen in the terms of the competitions we just keep working like we normally do. Worst case scenario is competitions are canceled, but experience from building the bots is gained. Best case scenario is that this awful virus goes away and we go back to normal.
Honestly with the rate of change that has been occurring these passed few months there’s no telling what competitions will look like, but preparing for the worst definitely dissent hurt.
Personally I think by the time competitions would be allowed to start it won’t be as much of a concern for small groups of people like six people on each drive team alliance but more or less a gym full of crowded people. I think limiting competitions to robot teams themselves makes sense and potentially limiting the amount of teams able to attend competitions makes the most sense. Masks and gloves I think would really depend on the area the competition is taking place.
