I competed in the Hong Kong Vex Competition for a chance at going to America. I learnt vex outside of school, so my teammate was from a different school. There were also 3 other teams from the same company with all of them from different schools. So, when we signed up, we used completely different names even though we had been learning robotics together for an entire year. We designed robots together and coded them together, so our teams were basically the same. I ended up winning the tournament and should have gone to the US but my rights to that were revoked. Why? Because in the finals on the other alliance was my teammates and so this created a situation where 3 of the robots competing in the finals were the exact same with the same auto as well. Obviously, the judges werenât very happy with this and tried to DQ me for that. They were like (in Cantonese ) So how come you guys have the same machine? Why are you guys learning together when you are in different teams. Why is the code on everyoneâs machine the same. When we were preparing, we prepared together. So 2 people out of the 4 teams that went wrote the code for all of us. Leaving the other two teams with codes that âthey didnât writeâ. I ended up keeping my title as champion but I wasnât able to go to the US, should this have happened?
wow - I have no words.
My advice is to read the RECF policies about registering teams, student roles on a team, and Game Manual - Q&A specifically relating to rules about robot must represent teamâs skill levels.
The quotation marks seem kind of unnecessary. They didnât write the code. This is a huge G4/R2 violation
I donât know if I did something wrong or not so please tell me your opinion on this.
Thanks so much for the advice
Thanks for telling me that. I should check that out this year and avoid making the same mistakes. Thanks a lot.
Itâs not about anyoneâs opinion. For you to not know you were doing something wrong indicates you did not read the rules â even after you were punished for breaking those rules.
Become informed, read the game manual and the documents it references.
Welcome!
Now, I gotta be honest, this may look harsh but weâre only trying to help you understand.
Iâm sorry, this shouldnât happen- At all.
Here are some examples the manual has:
G2- V5RC is a student-centered program. Adults should not make decisions about the Robotâs build, design, or gameplay, and should not provide an unfair advantage by providing âhelpâ that is beyond the Studentâs independent abilities. Students must be prepared to demonstrate an active understanding of their Robotâs design, construction, and programming to judges or event staff. Students should build, design, and code the Robot with minimal Adult involvement.
G4-Each Student can only belong to one Team, and all work must represent the skill level of the Students on the Team. Each Team must include Drive Team Members, Coder(s), Designer(s), and Builder(s). Many also include notebooker(s). No Student may fulfill any of these roles for more than one VEX V5 Robotics Competition Team in a given competition season. Students may have more than one role on the Team, e.g., the Designer may also be the Builder, the Coder, and a Drive Team Member.
And some mentions the Forum itself has,
Okay- I get that last one is not from our season. But it kind of tries to make a point. It is OKAY for students to start off somewhere but they gotta build off that. As you described âWe designed robots together and coded them together, so our teams were basically the same.â would be against the rules generally.
Now- I get most of these are centered around adults and you may have not been taught this by an adult and walked over to the same solution as the 3 other teams but- You shouldâve read the manual- At least to get a small understanding.
Itâs okay to start off learning together â thatâs literally how everyone begins. But when it comes time to register as separate teams, each one needs to branch out and become their own. Youâre supposed to grow from shared ideas, not just copy/paste the whole thing.
And yeah, I saw your question:
Now, let me explain G4 to you, this means that you can only be in ONE team, no giving them your whole code.
Your header question makes that sound kind of like a joke " Should people who learn vex outside of school be allowed to team with people from other schools and share designs?"
You can, but you canât give them literally everything, teams are supposed to be unique.
Now- If this doesnât make sense let me give you some real life.
Iâm in a schooled team with 4 other teams at my school. We all work in the same room, have decent interactions, and share eachotherâs pities.
But- our robots ended up all completely different, how is this?
We all worked in the same room- Like I assumed you did- We all talked often- As you said- and we shared eachothers designs- As you also said.
Hereâs what we did differently:
We talk to OUR team, come up with ideas with them. We time-to-time would gloat about how âgreatâ our idea was to other teams but nobody really tried copying eachother- Now, end of season, we build what we had in mind. Maybe some adjustments, like 3 more intakes than needed or a larger gear ratio on certain places- But still our idea- And the other teams, totally different. Youâd wonder how they make it through the matches- But they do- And do it great.
You got to get creative, you guys need to learn a little personal space within eachother- Sure, Meganâs (thats gonna be out default) idea sounds great! Youâve got to get creative. Sure, Meganâs idea might be amazing â but that doesnât mean you hand it out like free candy. Add something to it, reshape it. Donât just drop the same bot on three fields and call it a season.
And code too â once youâve shared the design and the code, itâs basically the same robot. May as well be on the same team. That isnât what VEX had in mind when it created all this.
My apologies if I was all over the place. Hereâs your mainkey points I want you to take home
-Read the manual
-Be creative, donât fully take ideas from other teams- Adjust them
-Letâs avoid sharing things to people outside our teams when we know it wonât be changed.
Again, I hope this wasnât harsh (and I hope I wasnât too complicated with how unorganized I was), I hope next season youâd be able to get to go to the US. Just follow the rules and you may just be fine 
Think the most important thing for you to realise is that what you have experienced and whatâs happening in HK (in your other tread) is not the common or usual experience in other parts of the world.
Most regions try to stick as closely to student-centeredness as much as possible, especially if you are talking about V5 platforms.
The moment that you need to use a fake (or different) names should already raise a red flag for you to take note of.
I am not sure is it still the case, but I know at least in the past, China is pretty big on enrichment centres providing âsolutionsâ to schools. And schools will just buy the entire âsolutionsâ.
But this is not how V5RC should be like. And it removed almost all the learning opportunities for the students.
Donât get me wrong - it is totally fine and acceptable for teams to share about their ideas and even tips, etc. But it is different from teams cloning from one common design.
Thanks for the advice, it seems like I have to change the way I compete this season. Will definitely check out the manual like you guys suggested.
Our teamâs experienced this last season at local and regional competitions which highlighted a significant trend: approximately 90% of the winning teams were composed of homeschooled students. We observed this demographic often has greater flexibility in their schedules, allowing for more dedicated time to robot development and practice. Consequently, these teams consistently presented robots that were noticeably more advanced, often approaching a middle-school level of complexity, a stark contrast to most public school entries. Beyond this, I frequently observed a concerning pattern of parental over-involvement among these successful teams. Parents were often seen micromanaging their children, dictating specific actions and strategies. This created an environment where adults appeared to be actively running the program, rather than genuinely supporting and empowering the student teams to lead and learn independently.
Welcome to forum.
- Mind introducing which team you are/were from?
- Are you referring to VEXIQ or V5RC? I thought the OP was referring to V5RC.
I think this a situation that applies to multiple competition programs.
Australia is focusing on school based teams:
https://v5rc-kb.recf.org/hc/en-us/articles/31773585063191-2025-2026-Team-Participation-Policy-for-Australia
Not going to get into a topic that may start some controversy. What I am going to say is not intended to be rude nor is it intended to start an argument, nor am I saying that you are intentionally projecting negative stereotypes on homeschooled students. However, as a homeschooled student, I find it only necessary (and fair) to represent the homeschooling community within Vex.
If anyone gets the impression that homeschooled students merely win because we get an absurd amount of parental involvement, that is very, very wrong.
Our team had/has almost no parental/coach involvement. In fact, our coach barely knew/knows how our robot worked (nothing against her personallyâshe was/is a busy person as a librarian). My second season of IQ (Full Volume), we won excellence at our state championship.
While we get more flexibility for schedule, remember we still need a sponsor and a good place to put the field. My now V5 team, for example, has to build and take apart the 12âx12â field every single time we want to use it so we can store it in our practice areaâa public building.
Anyway, not trying to be rude,. Just donât let this give you the idea that all homeschooled students are that way just like I would never think all public school students were making copy bots just because some students had them.
To give a bit more context to my earlier post - this is the main reason that for my question on whether is it VIQ of V5RC.
Coz I wouldnât list robots that are in the middle-school level of complexity as advanced for V5RC.
But that said, even in SG, we do notice there are a lot more involvements by parents or coaches in VIQ than in V5RC.
In fact, in SG, those better V5RC teams are normally doing it without engaging service of external coaches or trainers.