With my team competing in Turning Point this year, it will be our second year participating in competitive VEX. Last year for ITZ, we attended about 4 competitions.
What are your inputs on how many competitions a team should enter to have good exposure to competition, as well as having a good chance to move on to the State competition?
My team made states last year and are looking forward to hopefully competing in the State Comp again:)
Thanks, and good luck on your seasons!
Most state championships allows you to add yourself to the wait list, so at last resort you should be able to get to states hopefully regardless of circumstance, but don’t take my word for it, I will not guarantee that you would go to states. I would suggest that you go to at least 3 competitions minimum if your team is trying to go to states. But I would recommend 5-7 competitions on average for a team.
Hopefully this helps 
Thanks, it does!
We’ve moved on in an little as 4 competitions but thats tough. By the time you learn enough to evolve and get better, you are done. I would suggest you shoot for 6, maybe more.
We usually aim for 6. Specifically, we tried to schedule tournaments this year based on a schedule rather than based on who was hosting. We wanted to have a tournament, then two or three weeks of work time during which the team could use what they learned to improve before the next cycle. Our region usually begins hosting tournaments the last week of October or the first week of November, around calendar week 44, and the deadline to compete and qualify for state is around CW 8 to 10 of the next year. That gives us 17 weeks to compete, minus 1 to 3 for holidays, which leaves us enough time for 5 to 8 tournaments spaced with appropriate time to work.
I would say you NEED at least three tournaments for the process to be worth while, as far as an iterative design cycle.
My robots compete in 4 tournaments plus league. It is rare that one of my teams doesn’t qualify for state. However if none did and they learned a lot and had fun, it would still be a successful season, in my opnion.
My program kind of lacks sufficient build time to use the full design process with the testing phase being a competition. We really have to use all of our non-building time to design the robot so that we can make sure we can do nothing but build during meetings. For us, there lies a limit on effectiveness of tournaments. If we aren’t successful, (likely) then we need to take a step back and redesign whatever failed. That takes up a lot of our time.
Unfortunately, due to build time restrictions, more than 3 events is really pushing it, minus anything beyond locals.
One thing could be important to consider is the competetive environment in your area. I compete in Maine where there are only around 100 teams and 6 Competitions including states during our season. I don’t know what the environment is like in Virginia but we usally attend 3 competitions, then States. Hope this helps!
VA has tournaments pretty much every week from December to February. We try to get every team 2 events, but some teams go to 4 or more.
One of my HS teams competed last weekend, has 3 more in December, and then 2 more in January. They’ll take the month of February to rebuild for March States.
It’s a very intense, competitive state robotics wise
Go to as many as possible. The more comps you go to the better
Have to agree with this. If you have a functioning robot attending competitions can only help you (besides costs).
Our team used to be associated with a school, and then we went to between 4-6. When with the school, we couln’t get started until mid to late September, and with other kids and other activities, this made a pretty full calendar. In addition to that as a regular season, we have been to states 4 out of 5 years, US open 5 of 5 years, and Worlds 3 of 5 years (this year to be determined). Obviously this affects season length.
We are now an independent team, and although this season didn’t start until mid-September (didn’t decide to go on our own till late), we have made 6 events plus a league for a month of events. Its been a busy 4 months, for sure.
Next year we plan on spending time in the summer to get ready for some early season events and not wait until November to start competitions. This will help to space things out a bit.
As others have said, the more the better. More driving makes you a better competitor, exposes you to additional ideas and revisions, and gives you more chances for a post season. That said, this is not a cheap activity, so your funds or other activity schedule may dictate the available weekends you have. In addition, the number of teams/events in your area may also play a factor.
This. Within reason. I would like to go to as one every weekend in between 2-week rebuild sessions, but that’s not practical for my situation.
I am a big fan of league play because it gives the teams a lot of time to iterate across the entire season. We run a league with up to 8 opportunities to compete across the season with 5 matches each time (most teams compete in 5-6 of the nights). It allows you to try out new ideas and designs without the “risk” of wasting a design on a tournament. You also get to learn a lot from others. I don’t know what your region is like, but I suggest encouraging those around you to help start a league if you can.
We ran our first league this year. It was a great experience to work with the same group of teams multiple times in a similar setting.
We’re part of a school, and could only do 1 competition this season. The other two that we could/would have attended were snowed out and subsequently cancelled. Do not let your team/build schedule get to this point. It’s very painful and sucks when you can’t even make it to State after doing so for the past 3 seasons or so.
Definitely go to as many competitions as possible; start building over summer so you have something simple to do an early-season tournament with, and then iterate and compete like everyone else in this thread says.
The range of competitions a year varies completely and imo really will depend on your experience and how much time you have. For first year teams who may also be early in high school, I like the idea of going to many many many many competitions, and 5 seems like a pretty good amount pre-states.
Once you get more experienced and as you need more time for school and other activities, you may want to decrease the number of competitions you’re going to, as it may not actually be necessary or even helpful to compete depending on your level compared to the rest of your region. World champions like 86868 go to a LOT of competitions and win a LOT of awards during the year, and that works for them. World champions like 5225 go to far less competitions (still winning a lot of awards at those competitions) and, of course, win worlds. (fwiw 5225 has four events listed besides provincials and worlds.)
A data point that I have handy since I’m doing prep work for the Ontario Provincial Championship. Of the 67 teams currently registered, the average number of events attended is 3.15. The distribution is as follows:
1 Event = 10.5%
2 Events = 28.4%
3 Events = 17.9%
4 Events = 28.4%
5 Events = 10.5%
6 Events = 3.0%
7 Events = 1.5% (1 team)