That’s where I find it strange… from what i heard, the organiser says there will be no worlds spots allocated for MS.
And now, many of the Singapore MS teams are wondering if it is still worth making the trip.
But the worst part is that Singapore MS teams are now seriously thinking of quitting and looking for other platforms to jump ship to.
If there is no worlds spots for APAC MS, then essentially Singapore (and other small Asia regions) will be stuck with just 1 MS spot for worlds.
So… the rest of the teams just need to get past the legendary 8065/66 and 8068 (which has always been pushing 8065/66 hard) to get into worlds… I am not even sure if half of the HS teams in the world are confident of doing that…
Not so sure about that. Looking at the STEMlabs with V5 - certainly lines up nicely with a lot of CommonCore and Next Generation Science Standards. Also, with a strong PLTW program in place, I think VRC MS is still viable.
While it’s viable, IQ is extremely appealing. Here in Georgia, middle school VRC died in a single year because the main county switched to IQ. It’s extremely cheap to start an IQ team, especially compared to VRC. Why should a school spend $1500 to start a single VRC team when they can start ~3-4 IQ teams for the exact same price?
I so wish I could pull the budget to go up to WPI with the teams. I think it’d be fun. But I’ve gotta save my leave for US Open, Worlds, and the NSBE events this year.
That is going to be a massive tournament! I have to say, I was thinking the same thing last night. It would be fun. Not sure if it’s in the cards, though.
It sounds amazing. The Air and Space Museum was one of my favorite places when I lived in NoVa. It sounds like it’ll make for an amazing robotics venue.
It definitely will be. Those guys put on some great events including our State Championship. I’m gonna be their either way, either competing or volunteering.
Is there any way for the High School Kalahari classic to become a signature event even after the event is full? Kalahari WAS listed in the signature events list when it came out as a thing vex. The event itself is 100/100 teams, but the ratio of teams from out of state to in is 24/76. Would it be hard for the event to add one more team to the roster so it becomes a Signature Event?
I’m pretty sure Kalahari is a signature event. Being a signature event means that teams qualify directly for Worlds. On the award tab for Kalahari, it shows that excellence award and tournament champs qualify for worlds.
@Gear Geeks - I was aware that for an event to be considered a signature, you had to have at least 25% of the teams competing to be out of state(along with multiple other qualifications, of course). On the Kalahari page it used to say Worlds qualification only, but now it says “State/Regional Championship/World Championship”. I’m going to assume (because this is a new thing) that they would try and find one other team to make it a worlds qualification, but right now it seems like it won’t be one.
Ah, I see your point. So, if they don’t qualify as a Signature Event anymore, how do they get to keep the Worlds spots? That almost seems like a boost of 3 Worlds spots for Ohio. Does that come out of Ohio’s world spot allocations then? It does seem to go against the spirit of Signature Events. Hmmm.
