I am considering starting a vexU team in Cali. I looked on the robotevents.com and there are not a lot of matches in US (especially in cali), nor there were last year. Am I looking on the wrong website? Appreciate any info where to find more matches.
Thanks
The site is actually robotevents.
This is the link to the VEX U page; Robot Events
At the moment there are no VEX U matches scheduled in California, actually there are barley any VEX U events scheduled at all. There may be more scheduled later in the season.
nope… but even that would be kinda far compared to the number of matches for vex (for high schools) and their close proximity. It’s weird that there is so little vexU matches compared to vex (HS)
But isn’t it great that all US teams have to qualify by basically winning Excellence Award unless they can stumble across a large event where the winners qualify too? Don’t forget all 6 of those skills spots that qualify!
Just saying how it’s unfortunate that most US VEXU teams have to bank on qualifying via the skills spots or wait list because there aren’t any feasible events remotely near you. Our Midwest chapter had to seriously consider making a trip out to Maryland just to have a competition to qualify from.
The lack of qualification options for Vex U teams certainly is unfortunate, though to an extent that is to be expected from the geographically spread out nature of colleges as compared to high school. The density of teams is drastically lesser than for high school, thus the number of qualifiers available is significantly lesser.
Team BLRS is doing as much as possible to help improve this situation, as we are fortunate to be located fairly centrally to many of the Midwestern U.S. Vex U teams. As one could also find on RobotEvents, we are hosting a scrimmage, a qualifier, and a last chance skills event this year to help teams cut down on travel time/expenses and hopefully increase the possible number of opportunities for Vex U teams to qualify for worlds this year.
@pwnageNick We hope to see you at one or multiple of our competitions if possible! Sorry we can’t help the situation out in Cali @Z42lrO
Team VCAT Robotics will be hosting a scrimmage for VEXU teams this December and a qualifier in January. Hopefully this helps all VEXU teams to qualify. It is far for teams in Cali but if you do need a qualifier to go to you are always welcome to our event and this invitation goes out to all other VEXU teams as well. Details are on Robotevents.com
Im in the same boat as you. Me and a friend have a half-built vexU robot here in northern California and we are just waiting to see if an event pops up close enough before we pull the tiger and register the team. Just saw a tournament in Prescott AZ. so not all hope is lost.
What about us are we not persons in college? Most of my friends have least one non career related vice and spend just as much time and money on it as we do ours.
I don’t know. I guess a lot of college students consider VEX below them. My brother’s opinion is that there are lots of more applicable, cool, and powerful robotics programs that are available at the college level. Not that he’s partaking in those, he’s probably just lazy.
I don’t know about the University experience, but I have community college experience:
The SME club tried two years to compete at the NRC event: basically a sumo-bot…locate and shove your opponent out of the ring fully autonomous. Kind of a boring game. At last year’s competition, there were only 3 entries, we took first place at the college level last year by shoving the other college entrant out of the ring, but the third robot, from a high school, shoved our robot out and won 1st place at the HS level.
Both years, the team never got more than a couple students, because community college students are just too busy. 64% of the studens work full time.
This year, we have started a VEX-U team with 3 VEX Alumni. Having a “starting group” I’m hoping to garner more interest in a robotics club from the rest of the community college.
I think it’s mostly due to college students not having enough time between classes and work/internships. VEXU is a good competition for small groups of students without a ton of funding.
Are there any robotics programs that are big at the college level?
Sorry to jump in so late. But yes, the team here at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ is hosting a VEX U competition on November 5th, 2016 as this date was favorable for the teams in the Arizona region last year. We currently have about 2 more spots left after I can get my own teams registered.
I will say that yes, there are a low amount of competitions for the VEX U community, that is why we do our best up here in Prescott to offer up opportunities for teams to compete in our region. Along with the competition in November we may also be able to host on in January, but details for this wont be confirmed till a later date and at the moment I can’t make any promises.
As most of you have said VEX is not a main competition circuit for the College level, but one of the main reasons a lot of teams start is due to the low funding needed to start teams and the ability to run off of existing parts from past years. That is how our team was able to get off the ground and been able to grow to the three teams we have this season, a jump from two last year. Some of our members like to jump into VEX as they enter as freshman or sophomores and then move onto other teams we have on campus. But most of us like to stay on throughout our time here due to it being almost a stress reliever environment vs the high work/stress load that other teams have on campus. With that being said, most of us like to be on about two project while we are here, one of them being VEX and another being either another one of the higher level robotics competition teams or something more related to our field of study.
So we for sure have at least 6 teams attending this year? That’s cool.
A competition in January would be nice. I’ve been trying to get my place of work to host a competition, but they don’t have very much space. We also looked into having one at ASU Polytechnic, but turns out there is way too much red tape.
Yes, currently we will have 6 teams attending, plus I have been in talks with another team that may also be attending. Pushing us to 7 total. I could potential hold up to 10 total, but don’t want to get to large. The competition is in a much smaller space then last year. Yeah, don’t know much about getting space at ASU, the VEX Arizona State championships have been held there in the past, but this is no longer true. I could imagine it being difficult though.
But yes, January is in the talks. Just depends on if we have the demand or not. But if anyone is thinking about November feel free to PM me and I can see if we have space left, or can open a spot.