Ratio of Effort to Reward -- A TL/DR essay

VEX V5 General Discussion General Forum
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This season, our team attended 2 large local events (50 and 60 teams) and did not advance to eliminations or win awards. When we asked ourselves, “What would it take to be among the best 24 teams in the playoffs?” we came to the realization that there is a core of about 30-40 teams who attend our events that are extremely committed to VRC and for the most part, produce outstanding robots that far exceed ours. After talking with various members of “Core” teams, we observed several defining characteristics:

  1. Attending 6 – 10 events per year is common.
  2. The teams typically spend 500 – 1000 hours/year on Vex/VRC-related activities.
  3. The teams typically spend well upwards of $1000/year on equipment and event fees.

As a “Fringe” team, we typically attend 1-3 events/year, and spend 100-150 hours and $400/year on VRC. We realized that if we ever hoped to receive awards, advance to higher events, or even participate in eliminations, we would need to become members of the “Core”. Even a “Core” investment would not guarantee a place in elimination rounds, as many outstanding robots and teams were passed over during alliance selection, simply because there were even better ones available.

In contrast, the team threw together a Science Olympiad robotic arm in about 20 hours, placed 2nd, and advanced to State. Admittedly, prior to those 20 hours, much learning had taken place through VRC. Still, there was a sense of excitement and euphoria that came with that win that had been absent with the team’s VRC experience.

The $64K question that arose was, “Is what we gain from VRC worthwhile enough for us to stay?” There was no doubt that we had gained significant knowledge and skills. The consensus seemed to be that while we didn’t need to win an award, advance, or be in the playoffs for it to be a good experience, the team would like to enter feeling we have a CHANCE to win or be acknowledged in some way, especially after the rookie year. It’s one thing to have a winless season but feel, “I can make changes and succeed with reasonable effort,” and another thing to feel, “To make these changes will cost too much.” For us to have even a chance, we determined that we would need to raise at least $1000 per year (difficult, but not insurmountable) and greatly reduce or eliminate other extracurriculars, like music, Speech, Science Olympiad, and p/t jobs. The team is willing to sacrifice these activities every other year, but not every year, and we our exploring the practicalities of “every other year” participation, including volunteering during the “off” years.

Core teams bring much to VRC, such as a level of excellence and work ethic that tend to be absent from the culture at large. In addition, many Core teams serve the Vex community by hosting tournaments that benefit us all. While “stepping up to the Core” could potentially benefit my team, there are potential negative effects that could come from increasing the size of the Core.
• A large Core causes the Fringe teams to feel that they are disproportionately lower than they actually are. Suppose a region has 8 events of 60 teams each, with 40 Core teams participating in all 8, and 20 Fringe teams participating in only one event at each of the 8 events. Thus, there are 160 Fringe teams and 40 Core teams for a total of 200 in the community. The best Fringe team would ostensibly be the 41st best team at their local event (of 60) and think, “I’m in the lowest 1/3.” But in the region at large, it would actually be the 41st best team of 200, near the 80th percentile. I realize that there are many intermediate teams between these extremes that blur the numbers, but the principle stands.
• Core teams use more tournament spaces than Fringe teams. If everyone moved into the Core, there would need to be far more events than currently exist.

As the number of teams increases, if the number of awards and advancements fails to increase, we will experience the “stand up in the stadium” phenomenon: Everyone is working 5 times as hard as before for the same or smaller reward. Admittedly, those who were around in the early days got spoiled: In 2009, 280 of the 1300 teams (22%) advanced to Worlds, whereas this year, 556 of 7200 HS/MS teams (8%) will do so.

This much complaining warrants some solutions, so here are a few suggestions:

  1. Increase the number of advancements to a big event by having a number of “smaller big events”. The inaugural CA State Championship is a good start. However, it’s my hope that invited teams would include more that did not qualify for Worlds, to “spread the wealth”
  2. Increase the number of awards given at local events. I realize that this is hard for local organizers who are already strapped for help to find additional judging staff. However, if judged awards are already being given, it would be relatively simple to give 2 or 3 awards of the same category, for example Excellence and Excellence Finalist, Design, 2nd and 3rd Design, etc. As a judge, my frustration has often been having not enough awards to give to several excellent entries.
  3. Institute “honorable mentions”, which could be listed on the Vex website, with perhaps a paper certificate given to the team. An indefinite number could be given – as many as the design judge deems “worthy.” To encourage teams to check out other designs and build excitement, these could be announced before alliance selection (after which many teams leave), with the understanding that the design award winner would be chosen from this list.
  4. To provide enough tournament spaces, encourage volunteering and limit the number of times a team competes . For example, “A team is automatically eligible to register for 3 events. Teams offering at least 4 volunteers (including at least 1 supervising adult) may register for 2 additional events per service. Sites that host events may register for 2 additional events per team, or distribute 10 additional eligibilities among affiliated teams per event hosted.
  5. Reduce the size of events. It’s much easier to advance to eliminations at a 30-40 team tournament than a 60-team event.

If our team actually manages to successfully compete every other year, I could be available to judge during off years (which I prefer over coaching) and become a part of the solution, rather than the problem.

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The school I (used to) mentor has become hard-core, even in this their off-year with no funding for worlds: they do 6-8 Touraments a year, and flood them with 5-8 teams each.
It can be a great experience for the winningest of them, but I see the downside on the fringe teams as you describe.
Brainstorming on other ideas:

  • Ask for “Rookie-only” events, or “fringe team only” events
  • Host your own small invitational events and only invite other fringe teams
  • Do some scrimmages or unofficial events with core teams to learn from
  • Given that ‘winning’ is the hook, but learning is the goal,
    pick your own goals and declare yourself winners.
    – we win if we build a robot that looks unique
    – we win if we build a robot that does X different than we have ever done X before
    etc
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If what you’re saying means to have local tournaments qualify a state/regional championship which qualifies for worlds, this system is implemented by the states, not by VEX. I know that the states decide this one. Don’t quote me on that one, though: I could be wrong.

In my mind, this discourages competition. Teams shouldn’t be only allowed to compete at X, Y, and Z competitions, but not M and N because they’ve already gone to X,Y,&Z. I do, however, agree that teams should only be allowed to be given 1 world qualifier award. My team has won more than world qualifying spots. And you know what? We feel bad that we have two of the limited number of spots available to our state. At the same time, our team still wants those awards. We won them. I think the best way to make everybody happy is to still reward the teams that have already qualified those awards, but fall back to the next highest ranking team (for that award) that has not qualified for Worlds. Give those teams the qualifying spot. The World Championship has 340 available spots (excluding skills), but teams double, triple, and more qualify. BTW, I don’t see any way of getting around double qualifying for skills and a competition. I’m not sure how implementable this would be, but I think this is the best solution.

I see what you’re saying here, but I think larger events are much more fun. Also, 60-team events can potentially qualify more teams than 30-40 team events. This was done to make up for what you’re describing here. However, states are limited on the number of teams they can send to Worlds. So, some events will qualify the same number of teams at each event, regardless of size.

Invitational events can’t qualify as many teams to Worlds. (unless it’s a championship)

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I disagree with almost everything you said. We did our Rookie year last year, and I kind of know what you mean about not winning a whole lot. But you have to keep in mind, you’re competing against teams that have been building for years. They know the strategy, they know how to make things you would never even think of. You will do MUCH better in subsequent years, especially if you put in the time and effort.

It’s fantastic that the level of competition is increasing. and that teams will have to do more in order to have a shot of winning competitions and awards. As the years pass, I hope that it gets even harder to qualify for Worlds.

I think you are underestimating how much effort the really good teams put in. We’re only about average, and we FAR exceed what you have budgeted for the “hard core” teams to do in a year. We spent between five and seven thousand dollars on VEX related expenses. Between parts, registration, hotels and travel, it’s not cheap. The competition number you have about correct. I believe that we attended 7 this year, two in California and 5 in-state. Worlds will be our eighth competition this season. I can’t even count the hours we spend doing VEX related stuff. In a week, we each (on an 8-10 man team) probably spend at least 12 hours building (two per school day, five on Thursday), around 20-30 minutes a night hashing out what we need to do for the next day, and then some of us watch probably 2-3 hours a weekend of match footage in order to know what to expect at the competitions we go to. That’s a week when we don’t have a competition. It’s a lot of work if you want to do well.

Limiting the number of competitions that teams can compete in is a horrible, horrible idea. The experience of going to a competition, meeting new people and seeing new ideas is so valuable. It’s fun to just hang out with the other teams, even. And if you didn’t qualify for Worlds in the first three competitions you attended, what? You’re out of luck? No, you just register a new team. It just gets slightly more expensive, and harder for people to keep track of you between competitions. Not a good idea.

Large events are fun. With more teams to pick from for Alliances, more matches played during the day, and more strategy to be had at Finals, I always find myself with a lot more to do. Small events are good if all you want to do is qualify for State or get some driving practice in against some other teams, but they just don’t compare.

I recommend sticking with VEX. Our first season we did very, very poorly, but this one went fairly well. It’s all a matter of experience. And outside of FRC (which is even more work), I don’t know of very much that is similar.

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One solution is up in the Pacific Northwest, there are alot of good teams so the BCIT has a solution for this problem. The good teams who have qualified go to the A Division and the non-qualified teams have their own B Division.

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When you say “500-1000 hours” or “100-150 hours”, how many hours is each student spending per year? Are your numbers the cumulative man(student) hours? For example 5 students x 30 hours each for the year?

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I’m decently sure that in the BC-Washington area we had a competition that was more “aimed at” younger/newer teams. Not really sure how registration was handled, but the idea is not that you can only go to a number of competitions; rather, you can’t come here and wipe everyone else if you’re an established, experienced team.

Also, yeah, the BCIT competition had an A division which was qualified for (separate from qualifying for Worlds), and an open B division. This allowed teams to play in groups more to their respective skill levels. This may be a solution, having differently skilled teams playing in different leagues/levels, although it does require having enough teams in a region to split them up like that.

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To those suggesting an A/B division: how do you fairly split up the teams? There is no way for RobotEvents or VEX to say you’re an A team or a B team.

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The A Division is for teams that have secured Worlds Qualification or another award at a previous regional tournament. The B Division is for all other teams (there were actually two B divisions at BCIT). When you register on robotevents, I expect that the tournament organizers verify that you’ve won an award before they add you to the A Division team list.

I think the A/B Division split is a very effective way to accommodate both experienced and rookie teams to make the tournament experience much more competitive and exciting for everyone.

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You will get out as much as you put into it. You should be doing this because you want to and it will benefit you as an individual.

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The 100-150 hours is team meeting time, plus time spent by individuals who take the robot home. We meet for 3 hours/week. Subtract time off in the summer, add extra time for the weeks before and during events. It doesn’t count the time students or I spend doing research on the forum. If meetings are attended by 4 - 6 members, that’s an average of 500 - 750 student hours. Admittedly, some students are more productive than others.

It also doesn’t count the hours we spend running a local robotics tournament (FLL): 15 hours/ student, 200 hours for me this year. The years our students mentor the FLL teams, that number jumps to 50 - 100 student mentor hours.

I worded suggestion #4 poorly; sorry about that. The intention of was not to put a cap on the number of events a team can attend, but to motivate teams to host/volunteer more by their desire to attend more than the minimum number of tournaments. While 3 might be too low for a starting point, if a team volunteers at 2 events, eligibility moves up to 7 events. If the start is 5, volunteering at 1 event makes you eligible to attend 7 events. Events like State, Nationals or Worlds should be exempt (not use up one of your allotted spaces).

I believe that having more teams host and volunteer will become critically important in the next season. The number of teams this year grew from 4800 to 7300, and I believe that a large number of those 2500 rookie teams may attempt to move into the Core in the next year, necessitating more events. One concern is that teams might resent having to volunteer to earn more competition opportunities, and as a result, do it poorly. I would hope that teams that demonstrate excellence on the field would rise to the occasion and take pride in their service as well as their performance.

Large local events (50-60) will probably be a necessity, though they’re not my preference. Having that number of teams makes it harder to fit in more matches per team, and the events tend to run longer. When tournaments end closer to 5 pm, rather than 8 pm, you’re more likely to keep most of the teams watching the event until the end, which is good for both the lower-level teams who watch and the playoff teams. Large events also put an extra burden on the event coordinators – in addition to the extra hours of a long event, they often must be held in a larger room (like a gym) rather than a smaller one (like a cafeteria). Gyms are almost invariably used on Friday nights, which means that set-up for the tournament typically begins at midnight so that doors can open at 7 am for the tournament. Setting up a cafeteria (often empty after school) from 3 - 10 pm allows the staff to sleep, rather than pulling an all-nighter before a long day’s work.

Our team has gotten reasonable benefit for our investment, and we applaud those who have achieved so much – they deserve it. But the question that faces every Fringe team is, do I stay at this level, do I drop out, or do I bump up to the Core? If large numbers of people take option 3, it will have a profound effect on the Vex community and the availability of tournament spaces.

I realize that most of the people who frequent this forum are Core members and will find this post “against the grain.” But I think it’s also helpful for the Core to know some of the concerns of the Fringe and how their concerns affect the Vex community at large. If the Core grows significantly without attention to increasing tournament spaces and awards, there may be significant numbers of teams who find themselves frustrated at season’s end. It’s one thing to spend 1000 hours and qualify for Worlds; it’s an entirely different thing to spend 1000 hours producing an excellent robot and team, unable to attend the desired number of events, and failing to advance, win awards or honorable mentions, or even participate in the playoff rounds because the events were so big and there were 24 better teams at every event. In theory, excellence and internal recognition ought to be enough. But in reality, when you spend 20 hours/week year round there’s more energy when there is some external reward. The reward shouldn’t be overdone, but it shouldn’t be underdone, either.

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I seldom post things “against the grain”, :rolleyes: so let me take a shot here. We’ve been trying to have Middle-school only events, and that lets the new roboteers work and compete against other new teams. It’s worked out well in past seasons. We had scheduling problems this year and no middle school events. And it’s shown in the lack of MS teams going from this area and some unhappy roboteers and parents.

Because teams are now into year 7 of VEX and our ever improving mentor base, robots have become much more competitive. I’m seeing the same “fringe” issue here: newer team, less dollar able, and less time available to split between Scouts, school, choir, sports, band, part time jobs, etc. all struggle.

There is a strawman paper floating around our region about how to create a twin organization, like AAA Baseball vs the Majors or JV vs Varsity robots. The AAA robots would compete and learn and continue to be inspired. Goal is to get them good enough to move up.

Because these events would be a little less competition (longer times between matches) to allow longer repair / rebuild cycles, they would most likely end up being smaller (in the 24 team range). I’m pushing to go back to the early days, set up two fields in a cafeteria, get the home school to get pizza and drinks for sale and just play. Not all the glitz, special sound systems, bright lights, raised fields, etc. Which would translate into a smaller charge ~$50 per team to cover the cost of the space.

Varsity events would continue along like they do today. Scheduling is more important since I’d like to have the events not on the same day (unless they are in the same venue) (An aside, some of the bigger places we’ve had events, like Norristown, Haverford and DCCS, have space for 2 High, 2 Middle School Varsity and 2 AAA fields for teams to compete, so it would be possible to have them on the same day) Not having them on the same day would give a chance of the most skilled teams coming by to help mentor the others. (Hello Community Award!)

Awards are not really a problem. VEX trophies are expensive when compared to what you can get at your local awards store. But the unique looking awards (Haverford Steers, Dover Air Force themed ones, etc) go across really well and the roboteers seem to like them just as much.

So I think it’s a good idea. My #1 concern is being able to come up with the extra sets of volunteers needed to run the extra events.

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That statistic is very misleading. That’s total new teams added, not Rookie teams starting VEX. For example, we ran 127A and 127B last year. This year, we added a third team in 127C because our team grew from 6 to 9 people. A lot of programs do this as they grow.

If you think most schools only have one team, you’re going to be slightly mislead. Or at least around here, that’s how it works.

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Foster, you are a genius! I will take this idea to our local event coordinators and see what comes.

For us, the dividing line that separates us from the top is not age or years in VRC (rookie vs. veteran), but geography and complex cultural factors, including the lack of income and education, that come with our area. It takes me 3 - 4 years to get some talented area students to the place where a student from an “educationally friendly family” could reach in a year.

If we could move at a slower place to events with lesser rewards, this would be better than trying to sprint and fail. I have to give credit to my Generation 4 team. Unlike my Gen 3 team of 2 years ago who gave up and did not return, this group sized up the situation realistically and proposed an outside-the-box solution. While competing every other year might not be the best way to go, I’m glad that they opened the discussion.

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I never thought about that being an issue. We run our robotics team as an offshoot of Project Lead The Way’s Biomedical Sciences program. It’s how we introduce the Biomedical Engineering component of the healthcare field to anyone interested. This leads to a really dedicated team, as (generally) the only other people that sign up are those who are REALLY excited and interested in robotics already, and heard about it through word of mouth. I bring this up because if there is a class at your school that relates to Robotics in some area (Metallurgy and Fabrication, for example), you can get a very dedicated group of students.

Additionally, try to find another local team to buddy up with. We are looking into starting a rookie program at our local middle school, and partnerships between other high schools are pretty common. Basically, it gives you someone to ask questions to if and when you get stuck. If you register everyone under one team number, registration costs go down, too.

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So this puts the 8888 teams in a similar situation, we meet every Saturday for 4-5 hours. A few of the students do some work outside of these meeting, however, the school does not have a dedicated robotics room so this is difficult and means they have to work essentially on the floor of an adjacent corridor as the room is being used for other purposes after school. A dedicated space with a field setup would make a huge difference for us.

This year we decided to reduce the number of competitions we attended from five to three. We chose to skip the early competitions in October and gave the students more time to try and complete their robots. The team does not meet during the summer and we found the six weeks from the beginning of the school year was not enough time. We also chose to not enter all three registered teams in each competition we attended as last year we always seemed to have one team that was not ready. The major competitions in our area were finished by January but we did chose to enter two skills only events during February. These were enjoyable and had a very different atmosphere to a normal competition as all teams attending are trying to achieve their own personal goals rather than compete against each other.

We have achieved some success and generally make it to perhaps semi-finals, we have qualified one teams for worlds this year. We are reasonably well funded and have good backing from the school, the one thing stopping us from moving to the next level is space.

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We have some very atypical demographics, out of the mainstream. We have special needs students (including resource), first-generation high school graduates, and free lunch qualified students. And we do have a few middle-class students who were college-bound before VRC. The question is, “Can a team like this find a place to belong in VRC – not the highest place, but a place at all?” For our Generation 1 team (2006), and Gen 2 team (2008), the answer was unequivocally “Yes!” Those teams won awards and had incredible stories to tell. “Before Vex, I had a 1.5 GPA and was not on track to graduate – now I have a 2.5 and will graduate and attend community college.” “My parents never attended college but now I have a full ride to a 4-year university and a part-time job in a STEM lab.” I’m sure that other coaches from our region have similar stories to tell.

But Gen 3 arrived in 2010 when the level had risen. They had trouble building a lift, and all 6 dropped out after less than 3 months.

When Gen 4 arrived last year, there were no old team members to “prime the pump” of knowledge – Gen 2 had graduated the year before. In addition, Vex had released many new parts and our old equipment was outdated. Still, they soldiered on and had a good first year. They ranked in the top 8 at one event and felt optimistic about their second year. But in year 2, they found themselves in the lower half, despite having improved skills and a better design. What happened?

  1. The introduction of the 10 HS motor rule killed us (we have 2). Some teams in our region (including us) still use 3-wire motors. Designs that are “basic” to Core teams like 6/8/10-bar lifts are out of the question without HS motors and aluminum.
  2. Our local events of 30 and 35 grew to 50 and 60 teams each, and the new additions were mostly “core” teams from outside the region. We have ~25 teams in our region, and only one of them advanced to Worlds this year (vs. 5 that advanced last year).

If VRC evolves into a place where only the well-endowed can succeed, I will bow out with gratitude for what we received in those years. Fundamentally, I’m first committed to the people I serve, then secondly, to the program(s) that serve them. But if there’s a way to stay involved in a scaled-back way, I’m all for that, even if the reward level for those events is lower.

There are better teams than us nearby, but I hate to burden them, especially the mentors, as they struggle with the same demographics as we do.

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This would also be a sticking point for us, even if we had money for robot parts. Again, I know that those who have this provision moved mountains to make it work, so I don’t begrudge their resources. But some mountains are bigger than others.

Your team also has a better mentor :-).

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Something else that I’ve seen is at larger events is to have everyone play in the same division, say 40-50 teams. After alliance selection, those 24 teams go off to play in their elimination round, while all the other teams go into a “consolation eliminations” with their own trophies and recognition.

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Every one wants to win but this should not be YMCA soccer. If the reward is simply a trophy, the purpose of the program will certainly be lost. Competition is the hook but the reward must be the knowledge gain. We do Science Olympiad too but it cannot compare to Vex in lessons learned. I think the biggest lesson/reward here is learning about the value of failure in the engineering process. Those core teams are not winning with their first iteration.