My goal as a coach is to teach the design process. That process includes brainstorming, decision matrices, pro/con evaluations, prototypes, failure, lessons learned, try again, probably fail again, cycle continues until success. Failures are great teaching moments and they make better engineers. I don’t mind discovering an engineering principle on YouTube. I do have a concern if 80% of your robot is someone else’s work. Our team doesn’t win all the teamwork challenges or Skills but they do regularly win the Excellence Award. As a mechanical engineer of nearly 25 years, I would rather hire someone who understands the design process than someone who has a few trophies on their wall.
Perfect, winning Excellence or Design is better than winning the event. It shows that the team has mastered all the skills that everyone can use in the future.
I’m OK with a team using the “Tube Bot” ™ and then improving it. That gets you into the design cycle also. TBH, it’s very few times in my D$yJ$b that I got to make things from scratch, most of the time it was “extend, improve, add features” etc to existing products.
IMHO, winning Excellence or Design is winning the event.
So is winning excellence, skills and tourtament champion overachieveing then? 
(we did that once this season)
To me, the excellence winner is the sole champion of the event.
The award description says it’s the highest award at an event
lol YES!!! However, I love it because it sends a couple of extra states spots to the skills list. So, good job!
What in the world!! Good work, but how in the world were you paired with yourselves? And why does it say there are four tournament champions??
i dont know what was up with the website. we were paired with 65292C hot motors. i dont know why it gave us two TC. it did for them too. Trust me, we only have 1 trophy.
I can understand your frustration because when I was just starting as a coach I felt exactly the same way. Now that I have a few more years of experience I feel somewhat differently.
It is important to remember that engineering is not always about coming up with a novel idea or solution to a problem, it is also about optimizing and building upon what others have already accomplished. Copying a robot actually can teach kids a lot- it also teaches them how to troubleshoot, because when you copy a design, you inherit its flaws along with its strengths, and it is great for students to see that even what seems like the “easy way” is rarely, if ever actually easy.
The first time I caught a team hole counting a robot off the internet, I was extremely angry. By the time I realized what they were doing they were already halfway through. When I started paying attention, I realized how much the kids were learning about build quality by essentially reverse-engineering a robot they admired from the internet. This was how my students first learned about many bracing techniques, boxing c-channels, and screw joints. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken them to think up these solutions on their own- certainly more than one season. It is common in VEX to have teams that are consistently good, year after year. This is because the experienced teams pass down the tips and tricks they have learned to the new teams. For teams who are just getting started sometimes the best option they have is trying to figure out how a good robot on the internet was built.
If someone releases a youtube video of their robot, it is foreseeable that some other team may copy the design. But regardless, most designs nowadays are taken from previous designs, branched off and spun. This is innovation. To expect that your team can create a competitive robot without any assistance or outreach is not logical at all. Reaching out, grabbing inspiration from other team’s designs, and improving the design for yourself is how you improve and grow.
There is a reason a “meta” becomes created. Because it is the simplest solution the community was able to create that can span the largest audience.
This. As a coach of a Vex IQ team, the best way for kids to get better at building is to first learn the parts. This can be done through building instructions, or other means. Once they have learnt the parts, that’s when they can really implement the engineering design process. Also, look at a game like Change up. 99% of robots followed the same design strategies. They were executed in different ways, however. My point is copying is good to a point.
This is a good topic that is similar that should be looked into that covers the VRC side of this argument, and I would recommend that everyone reads this whole thread whether they agree or disagree with the points made.
Did anyone compete in “in the zone” Worlds? If so, you know what I’m talking about.
Unpopular opinion here: Anyone who competes at VEX IQ Worlds with a ‘SpitFire’-type robot shouldn’t win any judged awards.
There is a BIG difference, at least in my mind, from building fling, which has been designed by professional engineers… but designed with the purpose of being a starter bot, and holecounting from high quality pictures sent to teams with the purpose of holecounting.
Fling is designed to be a ‘starter bot’. A bot that can play the game but needs some engineering to be truly competitive. It could be beat easily with a well-driven slick. SpitFire… is a robot that is designed to be highly competitive with NO modifications. Yes, building the robot teaches a lot, but it doesn’t teach the design process. I actually have a spitfire built and sitting on my counter. But, my kids won’t be competing with it. They didn’t design it. They didn’t troubleshoot it. And, it’s okay they don’t beat it. But, I know that they will be looked down upon at Worlds… because they don’t have one.
I also agree with rule g6. The robot should match the skill-level of the team. I have seen teams driving spitfire that didn’t know how to turn on their robot…
TL;DR: Learning from other robots is a great thing and should be encouraged. Copying hole-for-hole a high-performing robot is not a great thing and should not be allowed.
Spitfire: Gets disqualified
so what i think is expectable is what has been said about everyone taking the meta and putting their own spin on it.
another thing if you couldn’t copy, no-one but me and @Micah_7157X could have the ring mechs everyone has in vrc rn just because we posted them first like the day after worlds
what i did this season was started with a robot kind of close to 1469a’s initial reveal after @Micah_7157X and i both failed at differentials.
but then i was absolute dogwater at skills so i moved to a 4 bar but kept half of “their robot” i have now taken inspiration from @Xenon27, semicolon,most of apex not to mention countless other 2 arm bots with a ring mech. im trying to cut @SaltyCB’s wheel inserts rn.
it takes a freaking village there is no point for me to reinvent the wheel literally in salty’s case.
i have a high post mech for skills runs that looks a lot like 69644b’s but everyone in apex can vouch that i made mine first i just didn’t put it out there. no hate to them great bot btw
there is no stoping the collective robotics comunity my first year i hole counted im ashamed but i wanted to win states and i did. BUT i learned engineering concepts while hole counting like in a 4 bar one of your axels has to free spin lol. because as much as we say “hole counting” ushally its a screenshot blown up very pixilated not a manuel. and you have to actually reverse engineer it. but now that im a junior im actively helping the community and putting ideas out there. my latest is a locking motor clamp that uses a cam.(for a friend of mine who doesn’t have pneumatics). dm if you want the deets.
there is no stoping the
the best you can hope is to do your take on it better and then someone posts it online and you become the “YouTube robot”
edit:sorry for pings
The robot in question is a VEX IQ robot that can score every point. The designer is an adult that will email high resolution photos to anyone who asks. It takes away all the engineering. I wouldn’t even call it reverse engineering.
you act like that’s out of character for iq I’m pretty sure the games are designed to be like that and it comes down to time. this is nothing new vex makes some games where that’s possible either because they under estimate the community or because they want stop time to matter.
whoever is doing that emailing those pics isant cool but if you want to win take that bot whatever bot it is (i assume its the one that picks them all up climbs high hangs and dumps them all) and do it faster. thats all you can really do i suppose its been a few years scene i did iq but next level was kinda lie that you needed praying mantis hooks to play it wasn’t even a choice you had to have them to be competitive. but the team that one that year batman i believe (i should remember i saw them win irl) did 5 praying mantis hooks and something else cool that i forgot. take whatever it is and improve upon it that’s just how vex works for better or for worse.
I can also see the other side of this one team that i did a match with at worlds ringmaster year their robot broke and the kids literally couldn’t fix it the “mentor” had to come over and fix their ring mech and they got kicked out of worlds… these things don’t always go unpunished but there is not much you can do about them.
reinventing the wheel is fun in some cases.
so is taking an idea making the rough idea in your head and then building on your own.
Or doing it because someone said there was no point.