We’re tentatively registered for the Robo Roadshow VEX IQ Robotics Competition Signature Event and there are only 16 other teams registered. This is the earliest Signature event this year and its driving distance for us…so we were excited about getting to go to a Signature Event this year (our team’s 2nd year in existence); however, I’m not sure how exciting its going to be with sub-20 teams present.
I also noticed that all but the Kalahari Classic Signature event also have a lot of slots still open; though those are a bit later in the season.
I realize there is a chance to qualify for Worlds directly from these events and that the competition will be fierce (there are some big name teams already registered), so we weren’t necessarily going to this event for a quick path to Worlds but rather to experience the “VEX Worlds-like” atmosphere that the Signature events are supposed to possess. Just not sure that would be the case with so few teams.
Thoughts from the community on this? We have a local tournament that same weekend that we could go to which would certainly save us quite a bit of money and time. Not that those are huge issues but if we’re not going to have an out-of-this-world experience at the Signature event then it does come into play.
Agreed! Without a “waterpark” (Kalahari or Great Wolf Lodge) it seems to be really hard to host an IQ signature event and get enough teams with the new criteria (which does not allow a blended ES/MS event to increase the number of teams).
RiverBots for IQ is in a similar situation, with plenty of openings for both elementary and middle school. I’d hate to lose all the chances for IQ signature events, but without enough teams, not only is the “experience” not like worlds, but the event isn’t financially viable either.
Yeah, no knock against Tahlequah, OK but it’s not exactly a “destination” Signature Event location. Weirdly, it’s also the most expansive ES Signature Event too.
Indeed, IQ signature event is much harder to attract teams to attend without those attractions. I have only seen a few of them gaining traction, and it continues to be a hot event. Most of IQ sig events are very hard to run. As much as Riverbots is closer to us compare to Kalahari, I find it’s hard to pursuit parents to take kids to the middle of nowhere for 2 days just for an IQ competition.
Go. The people that put signature events on do a great job. The event is over 30 days away, so time for other teams get registered. You’ll have a great time, meet lots of cool roboteers, see lots of robots, and maybe win.
As an aside, to some extent I see this as sad. I know that signature events are trying to be cool, but the need to be bigger and better with more stuff does have a limit.
LOL, I was being sarcastic (hence the /s at the end). I would love to go just to meet some of the VEX content creators like yourself, GoGo Boba, etc. as well as compete against some great bots and meet teams from all over!
There are several issues with IQ signatures that I feel aren’t working:
They are scheduled on weekdays (at least partially). They have to be exclusively weekends to work, parents aren’t going to pull their kids out of school for IQ events like the HS kids do.
Cost: you can’t be charging more than $150-200. In VRC, they can charge more and teams will pay. It doesn’t feel like IQ teams want to spend above that. But that also means the host has to be extremely low cost to run the event to breakeven/make money or else they can’t afford to host it (that’s why Speedway IQ didn’t come back this year)
But the biggest reason is that they are all hosted too early in the year. IQ teams aren’t ready in August like VRC teams are. That’s partly why the December and January ones will fare better, because more teams are ready. If there were 1-2 sigs in February, I bet they would fill up easily.
@kmmohn maybe you should move Riverbots to February next year as an experiment to prove this point. When there are a lot more CT teams that are more competitive later in the season, I bet @gamania could convince more parents to go somewhere without an attraction. And you could always use the snow outside to melt and turn it into a make shift water event
