Illegal 4 x 16 plate?

[Alekzo]

I attended a VEX IQ competition where a team practically outperformed any robot it competed with. Being a new coach for my elementary school’s team, I noticed the oversized plates used to build that robot. I took a photo of it and noticed that it was using 4 x 16 plates and something noticeably different was the speed at what it traveled on the field. I have looked into buying the 4 x 16 plates on the VEX IQ site but did not find them. Are these available anywhere else? and if so, are they legal to use in competitions?

[spaghetti_code]

Yes, 4x16 plates are on the legal parts list

SquaredAway-LegalParts0924.pdf

I’m not sure where you can buy them. They maybe from a previous package.

[Alekzo]

Thanks for the reply!

[sankeydd]

There were two of them in the tray for ringmaster, but they weren’t orange.

The speed is because of a gear ratio in the drive train, and it isn’t because of the plates. I have an example here from my kids. The motor has to be on a bigger gear than the gear the motor is on. The gears are the 24 and 48 tooth gears which can be purchased on the website. Sorry the picture is dark.

[Garrison]

In case you’re still curious where those 4x16 Plates came from, I’m almost positive we only offer those in red in the VEX Robotics Tombstone

All of the HEXBUG VEX kits are designed by VEX engineers, and we generally try to throw a few extra useful parts in the kits for competition teams as well. While the electronic components in the kits like Build Blitz or Bite Force aren’t legal, nearly all VEX retail plastic components are VIQC legal.

[Art_Dutra_IV]

The Tombstone kit included 1x each of the the 4x16 Plate (P/N 228-2500-046) in Red and Blue. Minotaur included 2x 4x16 Plates in Medium Grey. The VIQC 2017-2018 Ringmaster game included 2x 4x16 plates in the standard Dark Grey.

As a close functional equivalent, you can also get 3x16 Plates (P/N 228-2500-038) in White in the Bite Force kit linked to above.

[Foster]

Once again, some of the cool parts are in the Hexbug Robot kits. I think I have most of the Hexbug kits and have built the kit (learning lesson for me) and they then go into the “cool parts box”