Hi VEX IQ team,
It is my understanding that a team that qualifies for Worlds will only be able to sign up for STEM if they win their ticket to Worlds with a STEM award, a Design award or an Excellence award.
Is this correct?
A team that wins Skills Champion Award or Team Challenge Award at the regional championship will not be able to present STEM at Worlds. The teams that go to worlds based on Skills on the World Rankings, can not present STEM.
This means that for Florida for example, there will be a limited amount of teams that can present STEM.
RoboSlam in Miami hands out 3 tickets and Fl State Championship in Tampa hands out 3 tickets and they might be given to the same teams.
Is this correct? If no, do you exclude teams that have won a World ticket at RoboSlam from winning the same award at FL State Championship?
If you get one of those tickets, is STEM a video submission?
Where would I be able to find information about the STEM submission requirement for Worlds for 2018?
I don’t want to mislead my students. My teams have not been to Worlds, neither have I. There is a chance that they will go based on Skills this year.
Thank you!
You are correct, the VEX IQ Game Manual Awards Appendix states:
STEM Research Project Award at VEX Worlds: Teams must have been awarded the Design, STEM, or Excellence Award at a state/regional/provincial/national event to be eligible to present a STEM Research project at VEX Worlds. STEM Research Project presentation schedules will be emailed to eligible teams the week of VEX Worlds. Teams should be sure the email contact listed with their team registration can be accessed during VEX Worlds.
Teams are only eligible to play in one State or Regional (multi-state) championship event. There should not be overlap of teams moving on to Worlds from different championship events as given in your example.
The STEM project presentation at the 2018 VEX Worlds is a standard presentation, not a video submission. It will follow the format outlined on theSTEM Research Project Presentation Rubric.
Wondering if we could get more clarification on this. The Awards Appendix also states:
“Restrictions on STEM Project presentations at VEX Worlds may be changed to include all teams that have been awarded the Design, STEM Research or Excellence Award during the current season if teams provide a sufficient number of Judges to allow additional entries to be reviewed”
The same thing is stated for the Design Award.
I am guessing that there are other teams who didn’t win Excellence, Design or STEM at the State competitions but did win at Local competitions who would love to present STEM and/or Design. For states that send a lot of teams to Worlds such as Texas, California, and Indiana, it seems like a big disadvantage that VEX is limiting winners of Excellence, STEM and Design to those few who already won at State.
There are lots teams in limbo right now wondering if they should keep working on STEM or just focus solely on their Robots.
When does VEX expect to notify teams whether or not they can present STEM and Design at Worlds?
Can you let us know how many judges are needed and how many you currently have? Maybe teams who want to present can help by providing a parent or 2 who can help judge. Anything you share about the timeline for this decision would be really helpful.
In theory this could create a problem for teams. Lets say at states 3 teams are amazing. B and C are tops for both Design and STEM. Team A is top ranked after Quals.
Judges decide Team A is excellence, B is STEM, C is Design. (On the spread the awards suggestion). The “may” part of the sentence leads me to think that STEM Award team will be interviewed but the Design team may not be?
Florida is a really big participant with 233 teams in Middle School out of a total of 2515, so 9.26%. The state of Florida was awarded 25 spots for Middle School. Only the STEM, Design and Excellence award from the State Championship allow the teams to participate in STEM. Out of the 233 teams, 25 might be going to Worlds (so far only 24 signed up) and only 3 will present STEM. I do agree that it seems like STEM presentation, which is SO beneficial overall for any student, is under-represented for the big states.
The intent behind the original question was to increase the number of STEM presentations because it is a great preparation for AP research in High School.
I think it is difficult for anyone to assign spots, I do think that maybe there could be a ratio for example for every X teams there is a STEM presentation that might get invited and I think that is what you are looking for. I think for bigger states the regional championships would make a lot of sense and I think that is what they are working on. VEX IQ is growing fast and that is a good thing. RoboSlam for example was a great regional tournament that was very similar to the Florida State Championship. They followed all the same rules and regulations and ran an awesome event. They did not provide an invite for STEM spots based on their tournament.
This is also a good exercise in the engineering process. If you provide feedback, they might be able to improve the process for next year.