State of the VEX, season wrap and requests for changes (2026 edition)

VEX V5 Robotics Competition
1

This applies to VRC, VIQ and VEXU. Pick your appropriate section.

  1. I think I’m done with complex VIQ games that are made to keep the small handful of Middle School teams happy at the expense of the VIQ Elementary Base. If the game is not challenging your roboteers maybe move to V5?

  • Make autonomous a thing for VIQ-MS. 15 to 30 second period that the robot must score some points. This year they could have gone along the long edge of the field and cleaned off one of the side goals with a simple drive forward statement.

    • You are awarded the points that you score, if either team makes zero points then zero points are awarded to the teamwork team. Ex. Both teams knock down a side goal, total 4 points for the team. Red makes 3 triple stacks, blue robot sits there earning no points, no points for the team. This is to get teams to do something, and also keep a “powerhouse team” from saying “sit in the corner while we score”.
  1. Teams may use 3D printed license plates OR for every team registration RECF ships two (four for V5) new license plates with the team number printed on them. (Yes, RECF printing license plates and shipping them to ALL teams is a huge logistics nightmare and cost sink. Allowing 3D printed plates is the “free choice”. I’m pretty sure they will figure out the right choice. :thinking: but I have been wrong before.

  1. I want new parts, and I want them on simple SKU numbers not “buy this $250 kit”. To be honest both the V5 and VIQ line have become pretty stagnate in the last few years. Every year there is “what part would you like” and we don’t see anything.

  2. I want an adult to look at the Inspection form and reduce it back to one page. I’ve signed shorter leases for a car. One of the questions should be “We followed all the rules for design, coding, and building the car. " That covers did you use only VEX black tubing in less than 6” lengths type questions. In fact that question and a size check could be the entire inspection process.
    4.1 – I would like someone to explain to me that in a “Student Centered Program” the mentor / coach needs to sign the form, but if I ask a question in the inspection process I get told “This is a Student Centered Program”. Why am I signing the form? In fact why am I in the inspection line?
    4.2 – And why are Code of Conduct questions on the inspection list? You are inspecting the robot for compliance. It’s pretty unlikely that the robot is going to start a fight in the stands over a bad referee call.

  3. Show inspectors how to make “story sticks” that show the max length, width, height for the robot. I made 2 story sticks for a regional event and they got used much more than the tape measure. The really fancy 3D inspection box is cool, but way over the top.

  4. 3D printed parts. Just agree to pay the IFI tax: make teams buy filament from IFI (single color, I’m a fan of the OG green color) and allow teams to print parts. Allow some number of parts at some total weight. ( 6 pieces at a total of 150 grams.) I have decided the “high speed 3D part self destructing at 15,000 RPM” was / is a red herring. My local library prints 3D parts, so it’s not like it’s a deal breaker. RECF can partner up with Quickparts and they can print things. Or IFI can start a side business with a Bambu printer farm. they can print things for teams and mail them from Texas. But the time has come for 3D parts.

And now for the ugly one: I want two “hero bots” I want a @Bailey Bot and I want a Ben Lipper bot. And no matter what the bot, I want the parts to be on SKU so teams that may be missing a part 3x4 plate, for example, can just go buy one (or a pack of 5). (I can go into a long stream of why this will help later)

Thanks!

2

I belive this is proof that an adult or coach is present at the event.

3

How would this work?
Considering the recent plastic changes, this doesn’t seem very easy to inspect…

4

…Car? Is it safe to assume that this was a mistake and you don’t have inside info about us having to build a car next year?

Also, out of curiosity, what is the reasoning behind wanting teams to have instructions for a Lipper bot?

5

Hi @Foster –

I believe you have the best intentions with some of your recent feedback, regardless of how your criticism has come across and the tone in which you have presented it, so I am replying to your post in good faith.

1. Complex VEX IQ Games –

To be completely honest, I personally do not follow the sentiment that VEX IQ Games have become too complicated. And I completely disagree with the premise that we are designing games to keep MS Teams happy at the expense of ES Teams. Especially considering that ES Teams regularly outscore and compete at higher levels than MS IQ Teams.

The GDC met today, and I closed our meeting by asking the committee:

“Am I crazy, or do I have some wild rose colored glasses on when I say that Mix & Match is not as complicated as people are making it out to be?”

Many of our committee members are able to get to events, and receive more direct feedback from teams, volunteers, etc. than I can in my current role, so I try and pose these questions to them to get a gauge on what the community is saying.

In this conversation, we came to the opinion that the games are not inherently complicated, but we could benefit from HOW we present our games and write our game manuals. In many cases, we consider the VEX IQ Manual and the V5 Manual to be similar documents, and we answer questions about those documents in similar styles/tones/etc.

We believe this may be where the issue lies, and are going to develop ways to strive to improve our communication to the vastly different audience that is the IQ Community. We hope to take more advantage of the new Student-Friendly Appendix of the game manual, and develop ways to present our information to the IQ audience differently than we present to the V5 Audience.

Genuine, and honest questions – What is so complex/hard to understand in this game? What do you believe is the line between a simple game and a complex game? How could this game have been made simpler to understand?

2. Autonomous in VEX IQ –

I’ll let the forum in on a secret – Mix & Match had a 10s autonomous period at one point in its design iteration.

It didn’t last long.

Logistically, we had concerns about how to accomplish this without some sort of field controller to control the states of the robots reliably. There were a few more game-specific concerns and things, but it’s something we have considered, and likely will consider again in the future.

We like the general idea, but also believe that the Autonomous Skills Portion of the competition is doing a fair job at encouraging teams to develop their coding skills.

This is something I can see making its way to IQ eventually. When? I don’t know.

3. 3D Printed License Plates –

It’s unlikely these will return any time soon. Teams in some regions were exploiting the non-functional decorations rules and license plates rules with 3D printed parts, and were garnering function from these parts. It is VEX Robotics’ stance that 3D printed parts do not fit within the defining principles of our competition, and we do not believe it is in the best interest of the competition to allow them. The abuse of the previous allowance led to the necessity to tighten the rule.

4. Inspection Form

I will be completely honest – some of the ways you have presented feedback on the forum in the past few weeks when directed at VEX/GDC/RECF/etc. has been disappointing.

As if this document wasn’t made/written by an adult? Come on, Foster. You know better.

I’m all for feedback, and I understand that the ‘Constructive’ part of Constructive Criticism is a spectrum, but this isn’t constructive at all. Would you tell a roboteer that you “want a smarter student to look at their robot and make it good”?

Can we look at ways to improve this document? Absolutely. And we have/are going to continue to do so. (see some discussion in point 1)

Do I have much interest in receiving this feedback, in this manner? Not really.

I have a lot of respect for you, everything you’ve done for the community both abroad and in Delmarva, and your continued support of VEX. I know you share the sentiment.

Adult to adult – I am politely asking you to consider presenting your points in a tone that may be more widely accepted and understood by the people that need to hear it. I understand you’re frustrated, and you’re expressing your concerns because you care. Please remember that we care too. Some of the tone you’ve used may lead someone to think you believe otherwise.

I grew up in New England, lived in Boston for years, and have taken my fair share of brutal honesty. It has a time and a place, for sure. Other people may not feel the same as me, and may be more quick to dismiss it to the wind, just because of HOW you are presenting your points.

To directly answer some of your questions/points –

One of the questions IS basically “Have you read and understood the Game Manual and all of its contents?”.

A teacher/coach needs to sign the form to ensure that the coach is also attesting to the fact that the team has operated as a student-centered team and the adults have understood the Adult behavior guidelines. And it ensures a coach/teacher is available at the event for supervision of the students.

Some of the Code of Conduct questions/Team Verification questions exist as a sort of “contract” that we can point to as an understanding of potential ramifications should they exist later. “You attested you knew this was a possibility when you signed this document stating you read the rules”.

Many of the additions to documents like this exist because previous situations could have been improved had said addition been in place earlier.

5. Story Sticks –

Can you elaborate? Share some pictures?

6. 3D Printed Parts –

Mentioned above, and I won’t really elaborate much further than:

VEX Robotics believes that 3D Printed Parts on Robots does not follow the competition’s guiding principles and ethos. There are no plans to amend this any time in the near or distant future.

Thanks for reading if you’ve gotten this far. Happy to continue this conversation, if you wish.

6

Add a third one? One from Blank too? :stuck_out_tongue:
But serious - it did crossed my mind about allowing teams to submit early season designs to GDC for approval to be listed as hero bot.

I mean… my kids have always been doing some of the earliest designs… so let’s not waste it.

7

Passing over everything but the end, I really do like the idea of having two hero bots. In so many years you see that there are two camps, teams that build the hero bot and develop on that over the season and teams that go off and do their own thing. I’d like to see a hero bot that takes a different approach but is still competitive, that way the lines between the two groups blur.

8

I very much agree with this, and was dismayed when the GDC decided to ban them. 3D printed parts were a staple of many teams who wanted to showcase some uniqueness and team spirit, or just easier, lightweight quick-swaps.

Is that not the purpose of inspection? To catch illegal activities? Just cause a handful of teams cheated and were caught doesn’t justify banning it for everyone.
For other decorations, I couldn’t care or not if they’re 3D printed (either way, someone is going to find some way to exploit decorations, and it is easier to do so than plates). But 3D printed license plates are extremely hard to exploit for functional purposes. You mentioned using them to touch the ladder in High Stakes, and someone else mentioned using them to hold rings. A simple rule stating something like “plates should not be mounted on moving structures (like lady browns) or in an area prone to game element contact” would suffice (cause either way, the plates should not be mounted on moving structures from a robot’s POV, as it makes them harder for refs to read).

9

This would be great!

I’m pretty sure we don’t need a Ben Lipper hero bot. People need to learn to build their own robots because everyone would just use the Ben Lipper bot.

10

I would say that they need to make inspection as easy as possible for inspectors. I agree with no 3D printed parts. They can make controller attachments. They can make glasses an hats. It doesn’t have to go on the bot.

11

Absolutely!

But this hits the nail on the head.

Lowering the barrier of entry in inspection and refereeing is critical to sustaining the growth in the competition. Making the job of the referees and inspectors easier and more accessible allows regions to grow, operate better events, and run more events. A larger trained referee pool allows for the potential of more skills time, the potential of more match fields, the potential of multiple events on the same weekend in regions, interpretation and enforcement of rules that should translate better from event to event, and more.

The reality is, there was a pretty wide disparity of the interpretation of functional and nonfunctional. There were things that were getting passed through inspection, only to be noticed later in the event, or at later season events (ERC, Worlds, etc.) that was causing undue confusion and bad experiences at events.

Asking a referee or inspector to determine if a part is ‘functional’ on a robot or not is not a fair proposition. It’s likely the team has spent months designing their robot, tuning it, adjusting it, making parts, making new parts, etc. It’s even more likely that the inspector is looking at that robot for the first time ever in inspection. Expecting them to immediately garner the same understanding of a robot is not fair or feasible. The feedback we received was that “sometimes it’s impossible to tell until you watch 2-3 matches (or more) if a part is truly functional or not”.

One of the current goals of the GDC, and it’s one that I am working on quite directly and heavily, is constant evaluation & reevaluation of the Robot Rules to determine what is important to care about, what isn’t important to care about, what is easy to inspect, what is not easy to inspect, etc. And then develop ways to find a compromise to improve the neglected experience (in this case, the Volunteer/Referee/Inspector experience).

Team Experience is important, and we want to enable the teams to blossom and develop amazing robots to nurture skills. But we cannot do that at the expense of the other experiences at our events and in our program.

It is not dissimilar to the R25 updates from this past year. Teams were upset, but they were upset because it was not really their experience that was being neglected in the first place with that rule. They didn’t immediately understand the issue. But referees and inspectors did!

It’s possible teams will never like that rule. It’s more likely teams will find ways to adjust, and figure it out. It’s a compromise that still allows teams some of the freedoms they had previously, but ensuring that referees and inspectors are able to properly and confidently fulfill their roles, and accurately determine robot legality.

It’s possible teams will always miss 3D Printed License Plates. It’s more likely teams will find ways to adjust, and figure it out. It’s a compromise … you get the point :stuck_out_tongue:

12

As for the autonomous period - would LOVE that, but it would be impossible to run at IQ with current hardward/software that doesn’t have a field controller.

13

Yes, auton in VIQRC Teamwork Challenge matches please! With the wide range of ages and/or abilities doing VIQRC this would really help. Autonomous Skills are good but optional. This would help emphasize the need for a more well-rounded skill set.

14

I don’t understand why people keep you fighting you on this.

15

Not enough people have “worn the other shoes”

16

I’d like to add, whilst I have limited experience with inspecting teams, I’ve done it once, having a full list to check through was very helpful. Especially with IQ robots, not every question has to be asked, as most of the time it is easy to see things on the robot, and my previous IQ experience helped.

I was inspecting with another volunteer, who had never done vex before, and I think that it would have been impossible for him to accurately check a robot’s legality without having the questions…

17

I’m trying to come up with a solution that would be feasible, but I would love to get adults out of the inspection line. I wonder if there could be a separate online form that coaches/adults would have to fill out that EPs could have a QR code available to scan? And robots wouldn’t be cleared for inspection until the Coach filled it out and certified their part?

18

Coached a first year VexIQ 5th grade team this year, and the students loved the game. Scoring almost always needed the calculator, but the students were able to think through mechs and game strategy very effectively.

I think why it got the reputation of being complex (besides needing the scoring calculator) was the beam. Building a bot that could score the beam was a LOT more difficult than stack in the goals. But, I take this as a good thing - there are levels of difficulty that teams can play up to based on their capabilities.

I liken it to V5 High Stakes. Nobody did a tier 3 climb during the season, but it was a necessity at Worlds. World-level competitive teams had tough problems to solve, state-level competitive teams had different tough problems to solve.

My “wishlist” thought for the GDC is to keep looking at that idea of tiered complexity.

19

Thanks for this reply! I appreciate the perspective.

I believe we agree. One of the central conversation points in many of the recent game developments is the concept of “the game is as hard as you make it”, or said differently – “as you get better, the game gets harder”.

It’s much easier to accomplish this in 2v0 IQ games and Skills than it is in H2H V5 games, though :sweat_smile:

20

One thing, as we prepare as refs for our ERC, that I would have is to relax the rules around rubber bands and zip ties. I’m not keen on breaking out calipers to make sure every zip tie is within tolerance. I never knew how esoteric and varied rubber bands were before Vex. There is very little way to actually verify rubber bands as compliant to Vex rules, IMO. Similar for the antislip mat. IDK how to frame these rules (clearly there may be some zip ties commercially available that give function above “standard ones” and clearly there are “rubber bands” that are significantly more powerful that the ones currently allowed, but I have faith in you!)