our 1st (and only) event is coming up, so I want to know how we actually qualify for states. I know there’s the standard event champion/award winner qualifications, but I don’t think the number of teams that qualified through those comes anywhere close to our typical # of states spots. (we have ~80 for east PA). our robotics teacher said that we received an invitation in the spin up season, but that doesn’t really make sense since we didn’t win any awards, and our robot barely worked that year. also, the event webpage says that we only have 45 slots this year, but I don’t know why they would do that, since we’ve had twice that amount for at least the past 3 years. so that has to be something that they just haven’t updated yet…right?
The way you were invited in spin up was most likely due to skills, VEX gives state invites to a certain number of the top teams in state skills. If they were to give say 5, then the top 5 teams in the state would qualify, however generally teams in the top 5 skills rankings already have invitations so the invite goes down the list until it reaches a team without an invite. This also happens at tournaments with the skills champion award.
yeah but we were really bad that year… I just looked it up and we were 16th in skills at our event last year (which is better than what I expected, given what i’ve been told about that year’s robot, but still). I guess it’s possible that’s what happened, but it seems really unlikely.
States do often give out a lot of invites through skills, so if you would like to qualify for state I would try to get as high a skills score as possible, try to make an autonomous, even if it just scores a few points its always helpful.
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You are in PA East. In the past what they did was take teams that had won events, Excellence Awards, Design, etc. They then take everyone else off the skills list.
Last year they hugely increased the size of the event. It’s not clear how big the event will be this year. Presently it’s showing 20 slots. So the short answer is for you to do as well at skills as you can to see if you get into a slot that way.
Good luck.
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Also probably excellence will get you priority on a spot at states. For that, there are specific requirements you need to meet, so look at this Judging awards link
Also notebook is very important.
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there is literally 0 chance of that happening, our notebook is pretty much nonexistent lol
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Ok fair enough. But you are gonna need one in the future.
I know its boring to make a good notebook, that’s why it gets overlooked, but its also why teams that put effort into a notebook are usually at the top. Judges want to see effort.
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To add to this, having a good notebook is great to look back on after the season is over, or for rebuilding mechanisms from previous designs.
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Hey Zach, don’t mind @waitnomore, they are from NZ and it’s well known that most VIQ and V5 teams from there could drop their engineering books off at any US University and get a PhD awarded the same day.
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Really. I should come to US then 
Bruh, I was just saying that notebook is important.
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