7th grade member of team 81101F here. Next year, our builders and our team captain will go to high school. That means I and my 7th grade friends will be on the team next year. In our MS program, we only attend our local state qualifiers. However, I (with lots of ambition) plan to start the season early and attend the MOA sig event.
Reasons this is a good idea:
If we do good, we can qual for worlds early
More awards
choose a high school team for an alliance.
Can win a notebook award and at least qual for state
Reasons this is a BAD idea:
99% likely to get destroyed.
Must purchase own field, parts and pay entry fee on own since school season has not started yet.
School may not let us go
I have little experience in building and may build a very shabby robot.
If possible, ask them now if they’ll let you and the preparations necessary. What reasons may they not let you go?
Can you work on your bot during the summer? If not, then don’t go. If so, build a great drivetrain and “if it works it works” mechanisms and give your driver plenty of training. In VEX, a decent drivetrain will do well in the hands of a good driver (just play defense and focus on your notebook, interviews, and skills).
However, you can also go to othet signature events, not just MOA. Plus, you aren’t very likely to be the champions due to the experience and “OP-ness” of the other attendees. If you want to go to worlds, try qualifying through building a dedicated skills bot. You can take your chances by having a great notebook/interviews.
But you aren’t likely to win at all, and this will just give you experience for (hopefully) later sig events.
Always a good idea to get experience early in the season.
At our school our middle school teams have a reputation for being exceptionally competitive; a large part of that is because they regularly compete against teams who are better than them at blended events.
I’m gonna be honest, don’t do it. Mankato has consistently dominated every single state tournament in the past 3 years. You qualified for worlds this year. What makes you think you won’t next year?
Little experience in building doesn’t matter. The only thing to do for that is address challenges brought up in competition and figure out how to get over those, it doesn’t matter how complex the bot is. My team learned that this year, cuz we had a pretty simple bot for the most part, and we still ranked high in qual and matches in our first tournament. You got this!
Multiple issues here. First off, there are no blended signature events next year, so there likely won’t be an opportunity for middle schoolers at moa (no inside information but <10 teams were MS last year).
2nd, your reasons for going are all wrong. I’m going to assume that your team is “mid” based on the information you gave.
For a little background, I have competed at 1 sig event (Haunted) and we did worlds qual and win a judged award. I have also been to moa as a judge.
worlds qualifying at a signature event ranges from challenging to extremely challenging. It gets easier and easier as the season goes on due to the way that double quals work with already worlds qualled teams attending sigs later in the season. Thus, MOA is the hardest signature event to worlds qual at. You either have to win excellence or the event to qual and have a chance if you are top 3 skills. This year, no spots went to skills and the year before, only the top skills team qualled. Qualifying at Moa is something only the best teams in the worlds have a chance at. Plenty of extremely competitive teams(such as 9364C, 2775V, and 334B) attended moa and did not worlds qual. If any team goes to moa with the mindset of only trying to worlds qual they will likely be disappointed. If you goal is to qualify for worlds at a sig go to one as late in the season as possible where worlds quals can bounce down the skills list as much as possible.
If you go into a sig with the mindset of winning an award, you likely be disappointed. Teams like 9364C (who won multiple sigs this season and sig excellence) didn’t get a single award. Sigs are extremely competitive. Unless you are the best of the best, you shouldn’t go into a sig expecting an award.
As previously stated, no blended sigs. Not even sure why this is a goal, there is nothing that makes a high school team inherently better than a middle school team. If you really want to alliance with a high school team, go to a blended event.
Again, as previously stated, sig awards are hard to get. Another example I’ll give is 338A. They won design award at Kalahari and their state championship, but they got no award at Gateway to the West. Also, you cannot qualify for state at a sig. And if you are good enough to win innovate at a sig, you should have no problem qualifying for your erc.
Also, your looking at roughly $1000 in costs. Not sure what your financial situation is though.
Don’t go. You aren’t going for the right reasons. Going to a sig event IMO is about learning and having fun. Sigs allow you to connect and compete against some of the best teams in the worlds. Having the opportunity to lose is good. As losing a match is 10x more informative than winning one. If your mindset going into a sig is winning, you need to be one of the bets teams in the world. Also, I like to travel and sigs are in some cool places.
I would recommend reevaluating your team goals and priorities realistically based on your teams skills level.
This. These are all very crucial and important things to consider before making the decision to go a sig. Signatures are amazing opportunities to learn and grow as a team, but do not expect, even if signatures are not blended next year, that there is a high chance for a world qual, or even a judged award at that note. Go to a sig with an open mindset and the objective to learn as much as you can before you think about goals such as high school team alliance (which first of all may not happen, and do not overestimate high school teams or underestimate yourselves and other MS teams) or obtaining a worlds qual.
However, do not interpret this as a hard no. I greatly respect your initiative and ambition to take your team to the next level, and I think a signature event would be a lot of fun and a great learning experience.
I can relate myself, as I am on a (currently) middle school team (80Y), and this year we went to the Speedway Sig. We played against some of the best teams in the world, and it was our first competition of the entire season. We did not prioritize the right things, instead pouring a lot of our time into skills, build, and code with little driver practice. Guess what - We flopped. 1-7 Record, with a rank of 72 out of 79 teams. Our only accomplishment was 2 interviews and a 13th rank in skills. But, the things we learned at that sig benefitted us for the entire year. We made tons of connections and got the opportunity to talk and learn from some of the best teams in the world. We ignored the 1-7 record, and instead used the ideas and knowledge we gained at the sig to develop into one of the best teams in our state, and create a competitive bot, even managing to achieve #5th place worldwide skills in MS and qual to worlds at our state comp (not bragging, i swear ).
Outside of the right reasons you should be going to sigs, I would like to add a few more things that may be more beneficial if you were to go to a sig. First of all - maybe consider going to a signature a little later in the season, that way the “meta”, or most effective strategies and robot mechanism designs, are a lot more apparent and fleshed out than towards the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, early season sigs still yield a lot, but it may be more beneficial to compete/observe later season signatures to see concepts and ideas that may apply all the way till worlds. Additionally, you can also learn and observe robots and teams from signature live streams, something that me and my team were doing when building our robot for speedway.
In the end, I just would like to reiterate something that has been said by a lot of other people; signatures are fun, amazing, and great learning experiences. Just make sure you are going with the right priorities and mindset.
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