I agree. Start with the goal of being the best you can be, and then aim for being better than you are now.
If you’re losing every match, see if you can win at least one match in every tournament. If you’re always 30th out of 40 teams, see if you can be 25th. Try to make it to the elimination rounds, then the quarterfinals, then the semifinals, then the finals. See if you can be the #1 seed, or go undefeated, or go undefeated in autonomous.
See if you can make it to States, and then if you can do better at States than last year. Then see if you can make it to Worlds, and if you do, try to do the best you can at Worlds. (Here’s a tip: Try to practice on a field with anti-static spray if you can. They use it at Worlds, but not on the practice fields, and not being prepared for it can mess up your autonomous runs.)
Yes. And the elite teams will often be the ones being imitated, as long as the imitators are watching their videos or getting to see them compete in person.
I’m going to address one final overarching sentiment in this thread, and that will be enough posting for one day haha.
Many of the rebuttals to my points have been along the lines of “thing A doesn’t matter because if A doesn’t happen, B will happen and B is only slightly less than A”. I’m not going to go back and quote every instance because I’m on mobile now
This line of reasoning is a dangerous slippery slope. By that logic, nothing matters at all. Little concessions add up. Little things compound into big things.
Apple didn’t build the most impactful brand in the world by making concessions.
Top teams inspire greatness. There are two teams in particular, 8059A in NBN and 2915A in SR, that really inspired me to keep doing vex. Without those teams, I very much doubt I’d still be in vex, nor would I start pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering from a fairly competitive university next year. Vex has totally changed my life, and 8059A and 2915A inspired me to do it more competitively.
Here you have me, a very devoted competitor, openly saying if not for two top teams, I would probably never have done vex. In other words, these two top teams changed the course of my life.
Aaron Lucas said something similar about 8066A. And let’s not forget, Aaron has started a legacy program at his old high school and has mentored middle school kids for several years. 8066A is indirectly affecting a lot more people than just Aaron.
Guess which approach is more interesting to a 14 year old kid?
And what about the kids that never started vex that would have if a lot of top teams hadn’t quit?
A friend’s younger sister recently was considering joining vex as a coder. (She’s a freshman this year.) I told her, and I genuinely believe this, that vex is going downhill fast and it will just be a frustrating experience. I recommended she join the cyber patriot team at her school instead, which she has now done. She would not have been accounted for in your proposed study. And if bo3 was still in effect and the v5 rollout hadn’t been so abysmal, I would have told her something different.
Anyhow, is there any legitimate reason to use bo1 at States and Worlds? Regardless on the impact on top teams that Cold Edge and Oscar are so quick to discredit, is there any compelling reason to ■■■■ them off? The “you don’t matter so we will make decisions that you dislike for no reason” argument isn’t a particularly persuasive one.
I guess I’m just seeing a troubling disconnect between the mentors/ EPs and the competitors. The competitors are alive with energy and passion for robotics, citing top teams as examples of how they became inspired to do vex, and explaining the massive positive impact vex has had on their lives. HenryL, Aaron Lucas, and a lot of other people are great examples of that in this thread.
And the mentors and EPs? They’re just refuting the bo3 arguments with antagonistic and poor reasoning, basically saying “your opinion doesn’t matter,” and not providing any actual justification for bo1.
If bo1 is so great, then explain! If not, you are spending a crazy amount of time justifying something you don’t even agree with. That is both wasteful and frustrating.
to address this point, if this is true. That’s an interesting data point, however based on the postion you’ve maintained and past interaction with you, I will take it with a grain of salt. I had to tell all my kids there were robots on you tube, they joined because they wanted to play with robots on other people’s dime.
If I may express my opinion, the issue of bo1 vs bo3 seems to have been way overreacted to. Personally I think bo3 is better, mainly because as a competitor it’s nice to leave a comp knowing that the winner of the comp was truly the best robot there, and luck had less of a say. But if its bo1, I guess that’s what it’s gonna be. I don’t hate bo1 either, just mildly dislike it. After all, does it really matter all that much? I still have fun, and as long as vex is fun, I’ll still play it, regardless of the tournament structure. I hardly think this issue is grounds for this uproar. Our energy would be much better spent adapting to the new system then complaining about it. But that’s just my opinion.
BO1 vs BO3 is almost like the NBA playoff structure versus the NCAA tournament. With the NCAA, it’s called March Madness for a reason - upsets make it madness. In the NBA, the better team moves on. I honestly prefer BO1, as it gives smaller teams a shot at being a “Cinderella”. However, fixes could be made to the structure - maybe double elimination? That could solve lots of issues with the current structure.
I keep seeing the statement that VEX is failing where some students see one competition and then leave the program. What better way to fix that than to show them that if they work hard enough, we will give you two chances instead of one. If you mess up once, we will let you fix your mistake once. If you truly are as good as you say you are, fix your mistake and win twice.
Also, just the statement that VEX fails where students leave the program after one competition is simply not true. VEX is not only a program to teach students engineering and programming and STEM. It is also a way to see what STEM is like. Some of these students that leave the program may just find that they don’t like that field. That is okay. Some students may realize that STEM is not their interest, and that is not a failure. It is a success. VEX can help guide students and show them what their path in life is, or isn’t. Knowing what you want to do is just as valuable as knowing what you don’t want to do.
Thank you for these points. If I understand correctly, the advantages to bo1 as you see them are:
save time
easier for spectators
more teams in eliminations
no incentive to throw
What I’ve noticed (anecdotally) is point 1 OR 3 is true, but not both. A typical bo3 bracket with 8 alliances might take 16 matches with a shorter alliance selection, while a typical bo1 bracket with 16 alliances takes 15 matches. However, because more is on the line in a bo1 match, teams are more likely to argue if they lose, and referees are more likely to double and triple check rules before issuing a DQ. (See 127X hold up at worlds last year, Texas state fiasco this year, etc). The bottom seeds also tend to be under-prepared at smaller events, so often they take a longer amount of time to pick an alliance. By all means, a 16 alliance bo1 bracket takes about the same amount of time as a 8 alliance bo3 bracket.
With 12 or 8 alliances, a bo1 bracket saves 4 or 8 matches, but at the cost of teams making eliminations. With 8 alliances, only 16 teams make elims, and 8 of them will only play 1 elimination match.
We’re also talking about a max of 8 matches. That’s what- 30 minutes tops? If 30 minutes is such a big deal at state and national events, it’s pretty easy to cut some of the ceremony or just run the event for 30 minutes longer. I honestly think it’s pretty silly that EPs are up in arms about an extra 30 minutes of event time when all the students on all the teams at the event have put in a conservative estimate of 3600 hours. (24 teams * 3 members per team * 50 hours per member) Especially if it’s just for states, nationals, and worlds, the time saving argument makes no sense.
Regarding no incentive to throw, you’re right that getting rid of third alliances has removed this incentive, and you’re right that this is a great change. But my proposed system would have a bo3 bracket consisting only of 2 team alliances, so there would be no incentive to throw regardless. The throwing only becomes part of the equation when you have 3 team alliances, which nobody is seriously suggesting at this point.
And for spectators, it might be easier to understand with bo1, but it’s also more stressful. Most spectators are the teachers or family of competitors (vex isn’t a money making spectator sport the way basketball is) and they know how important vex is to their kids. My grandma actually said to me unprompted that she was really nervous during my elim matches at worlds last year because of single eliminations and she didn’t understand why they had made the change. Confusing the spectators is never good, but stressing them out isn’t ideal either.
I really respect all of the points you made except for the spectator point, but I disagree with them under most circumstances. I’d be really interested to hear what your own kids say about this debate and I’d actually be really interested to hear your opinion as well. Is bo3 a better system at states, nationals, and worlds? Is bo1 better at local events? How do the points you made weigh against the resentment a lot of competitors feel (justly or not) when they lose because of something out of their control?
Anecdotally, yeah. @TheColdedge, if you walk around a local tournament and ask random students their opinion on bo1 vs bo3 with their mentors not present, I’d be very interested to see what you come up with. A small percentage of the vex population is represented by either this forum, the survey I conducted early this season, or asking random people, but it’s pretty unlikely that 90% of the students you talk to will say they prefer bo3 if a majority of the true population prefers bo1. I’ve only talked to 1 team this year that prefers bo1 and they flip flopped after some shenanigans at states.
My kids have been mostly indifferent. They have won in situations that might have gone the other way if their were further matches in the series, and they have lost some in the same situation. 4/5 of my students are freshman and don’t know what its like to have Bo3 so they aren’t really missing anything. They like everyone hate losing a match because of a white screen.
I suppose I’ll reiterate everything I’ve already said already.
Yes I’d like to see more matches in the series at bigger events, for me this would be semi finals and Finals only so there isn’t much if any field swapping. If you look at the data Red wins an overwhelming amount of QF matches so adding more matches to those series isn’t much value added.
yes bo1 is nice for local events. We typically run 12 alliances so the top teams get a bi which help alleviate stress.
Honestly while I encourage everyone to continue pushing for what you believe in and keep questioning the powers that be. I don’t need to convince competitors that feel like they’re getting a unfair shake, we need to convince the governing authorities to bake in rules to mitigate their supplier’s (Vex) hardware failures. The losses due to White screen are unacceptable and I completely understand the outrage that comes from that. I continue to maintain that mechanical failures are the fault of the team and you do not deserve a second chance if the robot, that you built, breaks.
On the topic of white screen failures, this doesn’t need to be a replay. We can simply pause the match and reboot the team’s robot that failed. It will still suck, but it’ll suck a lot less. I might make the rule that the failure needs to occur before the last 30 seconds, but I think that would be a fair and mostly unobtrusive approach.
Just a thought on the white screen issue. I do like the the idea of pausing the match to let the team reboot their controller as mentioned by @TheColdedge. Replaying the match, to me, opens up the door to a team that is losing a match to have programed their controller such that hitting a particular button sends a “white screen” to their controller in order to get a replay. Unfortunately, that probably isn’t difficult to do and there are possibly students out there who have though tof it already.
As for bo1 vs. bo3, I am totally on the fence, I understand the reasoning behind the move to bo1. My experience as a mentor (for as many years as my freshman have been alive) and as an EP hasn’t convinced me that bo1 is the end of the world. I do think there is some merit to doing bo3 in the semis and the finals. However, I am also of the opinion that you play the game as the rules are. I have been lucky enough to have have some great students over the years and my top teams have been quite successful over the years. But I am proudest of my 536G team this year, who started with a robot that could barely move and by the time of my event on Feb. 16, went 6-2 in qualifying. Two of the three members of that team had NEVER done any form of robotics before. They will come back, not because they were an elite team, but because they had a blast and improved throughout the season. They did not worry about the fact that they weren’t able to compete with the “elite” teams and we have some pretty strong teams here in WI.
As for the inspiration that the elite teams bring, I agree. On the other hand, had some of the teams mentioned not participated, others would have. I am an extremely hands off mentor/coach. I try yo put my teams in position to succeed, but to also let them fail. As failure is where the learning comes in. We can all worry about losing matches due to things out of our control and yes, that is frustrating. But that is also life, sometimes. I am very proud of the success my teams have had over the years, mostly because they have done it on their own, not because of me, but in spite of me. There is always going to be a great debate between those who are in this program to win championships and those who are in it to learn. I am prouder of the kind of people that graduate from my program than the number of trophies they garnered over the years. I have many that have gone on to be engineers and also quite a few that didn’t.
If Vex is a silly game why would you or any other team pay for a field ~$1000, or game elements ~$500, or register a team $150 or pay for going to a tournament $50-$100. You do this so you can have a way to test your skills and improve your skills and learn all while having fun. So Vex is no silly game, Vex competitions are a very valuable resource for students to learn and grow in their knowledge. If Vex doesn’t mold its competition to the views of the majority of the competitors, then I could see that the number of Vex teams will decline. And this would mean that Vex is failing at their main goal of STEM education. In anything you learn you need a way to test your skills, improve and gain real world experience. This is often way more valuable than classroom learning. So if Vex doesn’t make its “real world experience” (competitions) in a way that its liked by its competitors, then they will leave, beginner teams, veteran teams and World Champions for a different robotics competition. I believe Vex should value what teams that have done great in its program think about the program as these students have exceled immensely at learning the design process, teamwork and many more important life skills and will become the best engineers of our future. Past multi World Champion Leland Crowther from 44 recently started at 3D printer company and attributed that the skills he learned in Vex made it possible for him to start this company. So just pushing aside the best 1% of teams as they do not matter would not make sense as they have had success in learning what Vex wants them to learn and may have ideas to improve it. Now Vex should also care about all the other teams and their ideas too. If Vex was a silly game you would learn nothing from it, but it is no silly game. When I started Vex in 6th grade, Gateway, I received only one trophy and made it to the state competition. Seeing the great teams in my region and at US Nationals motivated me to get better and learn, without the motivator of winning I do not know if I would have wanted to put in the 10,000 plus hours I have to get where I am today, been to Worlds 3 times, State Champion, US Open Champion, 60+ awards, competed in China at WRC and won. The idea of winning is possibly the best catalyst to learning and growth in skill. In the Cold War the US was motivated to increase its military and space technology to be better than Russia and be on top, this was a competition. So Vex is no silly game, Vex competitions are a very valuable resource for students to learn and grow in their knowledge. And the competitions should be constantly improved to improve this learning opportunity.
Yes it is a silly game. It is a silly game because there are no consequences for losing that is the point you seem to be missing. It can be both a silly game and valuable learning tool. I never once said it was worthless or why would I be donating half a working year to teach kids, the point I was trying to make was that not winning isn’t the end of the world and finding the “best team” that plays this silly game isn’t the point.
You mention the cold war, that wasn’t a silly game because there were actual lives on the line if something went wrong.
I agree that the goal isn’t to find the best team as I never said that. I said the goal is STEM education. I do however disagree on your definition of silly game, but I understand what you mean, I just believe that Vex should care what its competitors think just like how a company cares about what its stockholders think