We are a very new high school team, so sorry if this is a simple question. What we currently know is that we can qualify for worlds from robot/programming skills and advancing from states but I’m confused on recent events:
We recently won a 24-team tournament which qualified us for CREATE U.S. Open Robotics Championship. I was told that we could skip states and go straight to nationals since we won the tournament. Is the CREATE competition like nationals which qualifies us for worlds? Or can only state qualify us for worlds? Also, the top 30 in Robot skills can qualify for worlds, but what if you’re under the top 30, do you go to something like nationals/state?
In California there are 2 separate state competitions that can qualify you for world’s. If you have specific qualification questions you could ask your regional RECF representative.
Don’t feel bad, it is a confusing structure in VEX robotics.
Yes, you can skip states and go to “Nationals” if you wish…BUT…
The CREATE competition is not technically “nationals”. Some people call it that, but it will not qualify you for Worlds. The only way to qualify for Worlds is through your State competition. (or top 30 skills in the world, or the online challenges)
You can skip states and go to nationals, but nationals does not qualify for worlds.
To qualify for worlds, you must qualify through states, or be in the top 30 for robot or programming skills.
Being in the top of a region for skills may qualify you for states if there are open spots.
If you are in some state in the U.S., US Create will NOT get you to worlds. It is just a fun experience and you can gain a lot of knowledge from. If you are free and have the money, you should go. It’s a good way to meet teams and make friends (and whoop other teams butts). If you won a tournament, it should also qualify you to your state’s championship, which from there you will qualify for worlds. Some other ways are through programming skills/driver skills, Online Challenges (hard).
The main progression in the Vex competition is [local competitions] > [state championship] > [world championship].
US Nationals is a separate thing that isn’t part of that progression. It’s a good tournament to go to because lots of teams attend including some very good ones, but it’s held very close to Worlds so it can be a logistical challenge. It also acts as sort of a consolation tournament for a lot of teams who aren’t going to Worlds so I think the standard of qualification matches is probably substantially lower than at Worlds.
There are some ways to qualify other than through your state, but about 90% of Worlds teams qualify at the state level.
Since you are in California, robot and programming skills (at any point in the season, not just at the state championship) will be able to qualify you. You will be compared against other robot and programming skills scores within California, so you don’t need to worry about breaking into the global top 30. (This is how it has worked in previous seasons, I’m pretty sure the same will be true this year).
What’s the point of TOP30 since it will double qualify you from TOP30 rank and state/province? If you are in TOP30 then u are prob also in top 5 for province skills ranking which will qualify you twice
Not all states do skills qualification. States with not many teams don’t have enough qualification spots to allocate any of them to skills.
In states that do skills qualification, from an individual team’s perspective you qualify whether you are top 30 globally or just top locally, but if you are top 30 then that local spot moves to another team. So regions where people win global spots get to send more teams in total.
I’m pretty sure this is inconsistent with how this has been handled in some states previously. I’ll have to look in to it some more but I’m pretty sure I remember at least one region qualifying their skills allocation in addition to at least one top 30 team.
If Karthik is correct here, then you’re right that the top 30 has no effect whatsoever on states that have at least 2 skills spots.
The idea is the 30 skills spots go to the top 30 not already qualified teams. The assumption is that theae spots are given out last. Similarly to how spots are awarded to previous world champion teams. Sure in most regions effectively every team that makes top 30 in the world is also top few skills in region but not all regions have regional skills spots. (in all honesty I think less regions should)
If a team qualifies through their state and global skills the spot they use is their states. The skills spot is carried down.
Ok, that makes sense. That’s fairer than the state spot being carried down, and I already thought that was how it should work, but I didn’t realise that it actually was how it worked.
There’s actually 3 state championships in California:
-Southern California State Championship in Pasadena
-Central California State Championship in Bakersfield
-Northern California State Championship in San Jose
@ChaosRay I noticed you were a team from California. To clarify this question, the person you want to talk to is Nancy McIntyre, who is the regional manager for the state of California. You can find her contact email on the RECF website
Have your team’s head mentor email her at that link on the page.
“If a team qualifies through their state and global skills the spot they use is their states. The skills spot is carried down.”**
I’m still a little confused about all this. What if a team qualifies for worlds based on winning the excellence award but is also in the top 30 for skills? Would that spot to worlds pass to another team in the state?
The quote answers the question. If the team got the excellence award at their state/regional championship and are in the top 30 in skills the spot they will use is their States and the skills spot is passed down. I don’t see the confusion