Our team is brainstorming some ideas to raise money. Using the vex parts, what kind of activities or minigames have teams done in the past that have been successful?
Do you have the Classroom Field Kit?
We use it at demonstrations a couple times a year. My favorite is when there are two, pre-built identical robots that are capable of pushing the green balls through the hole, scoring them in the goals, and moving the Footballs over the wall. Each of the robots are controlled by two controllers. One is the base, with a switchable Tank/Arcade style drive and the other is the arm/intake.
One time we did it, though, we used what was essentially just a base to push the green balls through the gate, shifted slightly toward one side. The only photos we have online at the moment are from that demonstration. Here’s one. Still fun for the kids, but not as much fun as the “real way.” It’s much easier to set up, though, and simpler to explain in a short period of time.
I’ve never actually ran it as a fundraiser, though. We do it to promote STEM in the Valley. I guess you could make it a part of a school fair or something, using tickets. Somehow charge people to play, offer a reward if they win. I can’t imagine it would be hard to get people interested in your booth. We normally have a crowd of 20-some kids in line to drive when we do this at ASU Polytechnic.
That’s my best suggestion. If you have robots for this year’s game and want to set up the field, you could have them run Skills Challenges, I guess. The problem is when it starts being too complicated. Maybe remove the large balls from the field? That could work.
quite a while ago, my team volunteered to run a similar booth at the California state fair. (it was put on by team 254) it was the only thing in the building that got peoples attention.
Have you checked out KIWIBOTS KiwiChallenge? It’s a mini game released the past couple years at the NZ Nationals to keep teams occupied for the remainder of the season that haven’t qualified for Worlds, as well as being an good starting point for new teams.
The games are designed so elements can be easily acquired (at least here in NZ). Robots are limited by the amount of parts and motors used, it’s a lot easier to design and build 4/5 robots on reduced parts (think similar to Clawbots). I’m sure other local teams wouldn’t mind lending some old PIC’s and controllers to help you out and get it all up and running. Also it’s all fairly simple scoring and not hard to explain to passers-by.
If you’re interested the past games are available on the KIWIBOTS website. The new game will be released in about a month at our National Event.
We have also had robots play laser tag using wifi cameras so the drivers drive looking through the cameras. Wooden houses are placed on the field to add obstacles.
I’ve always wanted to create a course where the robots could race. Have them go through several types of terrains like a more rocky environment, some up or downhill slopes, and some flat, road like surface and possibly complete a few tasks along the way so it doesn’t just become a bunch of bases racing. Even if it is a bunch of bases racing though, I feel like there would be a lot of design variance between the different competitors. Something designed like Mario Kart to some extent would be super cool.
I’ve always been intrigued by this sort of idea and I know my classmates and I have talked about doing something like this. It would require some significant effort to design and make the terrains but would be super awesome to take VEX to a different level.
To add even more to it, you could put cameras on the robots to get that first person view. With this camera idea, you could make a dark portion of the track where you have some LED lights that act as headlights and the drivers would just rely on the camera in this portion. I have always wanted to do the racing idea with different terrains and feel that could be a cool game to have. However, I’m not sure how realistic it would be. If you can get it to work though, I would be extremely tempted to hop on a plane and participate immediately.
Anyways, that was just something I had thought of a while ago and figured if nothing else, I would present it. Enjoy whatever you do though. Have fun!
Someone posted this about a week ago:
https://vexforum.com/t/cerberus-rover-prototype/25157/1
Not exactly what you’re saying but still along the same lines.
Ya I saw that. It would be cool to race through terrain like that though. I would love a mario kart style thing for VEX. It would be so fun.