Unofficial answer (but directly from the rules) on Skills robot question

[blatwell]

@agjguti you asked “I’m wondering if it’s possible to use two robots in the same team at VEX U Worlds. One for Skills and the other one for the competition itslef.
I’m reading the manual and I can’t find anything about this.”

Rule states under paragraph a:
Teams are allowed to build as many Robots as they would like, but only one (1) may be used on the field during a Match. They may only bring one (1) Robot from the pit to the playing field for any Match.

There is nothing in that rule that precludes you from using one for skills and another or others for match play. You could even have two different skills bots, based on this rule. You might want one for programming skills and a different one for driver skills.

The GDC would have to basically create a new rule out of nothing in order to say you cannot do this and they would never do that.

[TeamTX]

Vex U Appendix E says

All the same Game, Robot, & Tournament rules apply except for the
modifications listed in this document. In the event of a rules conflict, the rules listed in this
document and rulings on the VEX U Q&A take precedence.

Then it has Rule referenced above, which in more detail says

Instead of a 2-team vs. 2-team format, VEX U matches will be played 1-team vs. 1-team in
2017-18: each team will only use ONE (1) Robot in each match.
a. Teams are allowed to build as many Robots as they would like, but only one (1) may be used
on the field during a Match. They may only bring one (1) Robot from the pit to the playing
field for any Match.
b. All Robots must pass inspection before they are allowed to compete.

Vex ITZ game manual says in <R1>

Given the above definitions, a minimum robot for use in any VEX Robotics Competition event
(including skills challenges) must consist of 1 and 2 above. Thus if you are swapping out an entire
subsystem of either item 1 or 2, you have now created a second robot and are no longer legal.
a. Teams may not compete with one robot, while a second is being modified or assembled.
b. Teams may not switch back and forth between multiple robots during a competition.

Since the rule referenced specifically modifies the ITZ rule that specifically precludes multiple robots, it would seem that you can bring (and play!) as many robots as you would like. It really sounds like you could build a different robot for every single match and compete them one by one, so surely you can also use a different robot for skills vs regular matches… That’s pretty cool!