Wanted to poll the community on here and see if this is something that others would be interested in having. Or if it is just me.
With the growing number of states that have robotics recognized as a sport in school activities/athletics, and the fact that those governing bodies like to have a single school as the champion (Not like the current VRC model which can have 2 teams from different schools), would it be worth creating a new competition category where each team (“school”) has 2 robots? Keep the same rules as VRC with the elimination of alliance selection, and different match pairings within an alliance. The desire to have this in our platforms is already there. VEXU does it this way already, as will the ever-coming VEXAIC. I personally don’t think that it would come at the cost of traditional VRC competing teams. There may even be away to do it within the same tournament. Make it 2 days (day 1 - Singles, Day 2 - Doubles). Or, allow EP’s to determine which event they wish to host each time. VEXAIC is too intimidating for most high schools. A VRC model “doubles” team concept would get much more traction, and many more team registrations. Just my thoughts. But what does everyone else think?
Yes, I think that students would be interested in having a 2 robot competition category.
While I do think this would be sick, as I love the strategy that can be employed in vexu, it’s not as easy as singles and doubles. A big part of vex for students is the teamwork. There would need to be a new game manual, and it would add more complications. Maybe vex IQ doubles tho
In my opinion, I think that because there are so many teams participating in VEX VRC (which is a great thing to get more people involved with STEM), I think it’s better to keep it the way it is. I think that students can learn a lot from working with each other through Alliances and just from talking to each other in general. Even though it might be easier to develop strategies with two robots that your team has built because you might know what to expect from what you’ve worked on, I think working with other teams’ robots helps and it’s fun to see what everyone comes up with.
It would be really cool to work with the parts that VEXU gets to use, though! But that’s just another design constraint that we have to work with. We must learn to work with our limited resources and find ways to be successful even with those limitations.
the tournaments managers will have a nightmare trying to arrange singles and doubles matches so that no team has a conflicting schedule. Also we have to do the interview along with that skills, mid tournament maintenance and all that.
VEXU style rules for high school teams would be neat. They can have events with high school/university similar to how high school & middle school teams compete.
If a team cared that much about being the sole state champion, they could just pair up with a sister team for the elimination matches. Most EP don’t have the time or resources to run tournaments for 2 days. Also, worlds would become even more expensive as prices are already ramping up this season and adding another format would only further worsen the problem.
You make a false assumption that all vex teams are associated with a school. Many vex teams are independent, community, private, or homeschool teams, and many programs might have just one team.
I’ve been a proponent for VRC-Unlimited. Same game, but the limitations are 1 brain, 1 battery, all inside the physical limits for the game. (ie start 18x18x18). I’ve been thinking about an optional V5 brain with only sensors on it.
But more motors, unlimited 3D printing, etc. would be allowed.
Teams build one robot and it’s the same format for game play. (Qual matches, alliance selection, B01 elmins).
Interesting.
Just recently a thought came to me - how abt the same game, same starting size or restrictions, but teams are allowed to use either vex or ftc parts…. And unlimited 3D printing and motors of course.
That will be almost like a robotics Olympiad of sort.
Alright… teams can choose to use Lego mindstorm too if they want to.
Initially when we were planning for the Texas State High School Championships one concept was that single schools would bring two robots and that schedules would be done VEXU style, but all other standard VRC rules would be the same. (timing, robot build, etc.) It did not turn out to work that way, but could have been really cool to see teams be able to have months to coordinate their autons and endgames. endgame would have been super cool with this year’s buddy climbs.