Even though we have not had the events we planned for VAIC, we have been moving forward with the advancement of this program, getting ready for the 2021-22 season, one season past the pilot season.
In the pilot season, we had 3rd party sensors that teams had to use because the VEX sensors were still in development and we needed to see what teams were able to accomplish.
As people have accurately pointed out, VEX U and VAIC allows for 3rd party, and this will continue to be true. But there is a HUGE however.
The software that we provide will be written to work on the VEX hardware. So, the GPS won’t work on 3rd party hardware and the AI won’t recognize game objects using the 3rd party hardware.
Teams that choose to use their own hardware will also need to build their own software. We simply don’t have time or staff to write software for multiple platforms and the documentation on how to use that software on multiple platforms.
So, I was wrong saying that it will be illegal next year because I knew it wouldn’t work and assumed we would make a rule so that no team was caught off-guard wondering why their equipment doesn’t work. But, in talking with the software engineers, there really is no reason for us to make it illegal. There are other things you might want to do with that equipment, and it might be interesting to see how you use it. Just know that creating your own GPS code and AI recognition software will take a team of developers.
That brings me to my next point. In this pilot year, we knew that we were not able to provide the level of documentation needed. Instead, we created a closed forum group where you could ask the VEX development team directly. But this is not effecient nor sustainable. With us moving to a single platform (only supporting a single platform), we are hard at work developing the training guides and documentation that teams need to be successful. There will be tons of knowledge based articles written to explain how to use the new VEX hardware. We aren’t ready for the roll out yet, but will be by early Fall.
So, you have changed my mind on making things illegal, but please be careful in how much you want to take on without any support or documentation as you navigate using 3rd party hardware. You will have a huge competitive advantage having the software supporting documentation and AI trained software when using VEX’s equipment. If you use last year’s, it will be very good at recognizing last year’s game elements, but none of this year’s will be known on your devices.
It was true that everyone was told and had to acknowledge in the application that the hardware you received would need to be replaced next season. This is no longer true by rule, but it is in spirit unless you are crazy good at writing for GPS and AI training.