yep, I see nothing wrong with extending the change up season. I think it’s a good thing for the reason’s you’ve stated.
but I don’t see why that has to mean that the 2021-2022 season has to be shortened. my request is for the next game to be unveiled at the normal date so that the large majority of teams who aren’t attending worlds can get on with the next season.
A state is a lot smaller than the world, a State tournament has a LOT less people competing / running it.
It’s not ‘virtual’. Worlds 2020 was virtual. Worlds 2021 will just be remote.
There are still actual costs associated with hosting the event.
Our intent is for VEX U and VAIC to be in person competitions in June. We will share more details at the Town Hall.
I get that but is 100 preventable deaths better that none? I understand other peoples opinion but at some point we have got to just stop do dumb things. And honestly doing ANY in person competition isn’t really smart.
We will announce game unveil date at the Town Hall.
Each region and each EP is responsible for their own decisions about whether their events are safe or not. That policy has been there for the whole season and exists for good reason. It is not warranted for RECF to change that policy now.
The problem with this is that schools have finals and AP exams in late may as well, meaning the extension doesn’t actually give them that much extra time. It’s essentially the same for these teams as if worlds was in August for a normal season. For experienced teams this is fine, but I know that at least when I was newer to Vex, this would not be enough time for me to perform well. Furthermore, the general consensus between teams that have been working (that are connected to the community) seems to be against postponing the season based on a dislike of Change Up.
I commend the RECF and GDC for putting in so much effort to try and save this season, and I do believe that you’ve done the best you can, but I don’t believe extending this season is the best option. I think we should put Change Up behind us and move forward.
Live Remote Tournament matches continue to improve every week. We fully recognize the early matches in October had issues. We did knw there would be a learning curve and the technology and quality of the matches have improved tremendously. The REC Foundation Operations staff has hosted at least 4 matches every week since November. They are at our office until at least 9:00 PM three nights a week and on Saturdays to make this possible. This past weekend we had EPs host LRT events for the first time. And the feedback we have received from EPs, coaches and students since December has been very positive. I’m not going to pretend LRT tournaments are as exciting as in person events. But I do encourage you to give them a chance. Again, the feedback we are getting from students that compete has mostly been very positive.
A few clarification questions (I understand that most / all of these are likely to be addressed at the 2/4 meeting and perhaps you won’t be able to answer them at this time):
Could not agree more.
By moving VEX Worlds to late May, we were able to extend the season by 6 weeks. We wanted to extend the “regular” season because many schools are just starting their robotics season now. If we kept the original schedule, many of these schools would not have had time to build their robot and compete in any tournaments.
This is actually happening. The RSMs are working with their EPs and in some cases we have moved back the state/regional championship date to April to give more teams the opportunity to participate in person (where it is possible to due so of course).
I was a competitor in the Great Lakes #4 tournament last weekend. Though it definitely improved from October, it was not without flaws. The competition ran an hour and a half over schedule even though it cancelled the last 5 qualification matches, and there were only supposed to be 30 qualification matches with 22 teams competing. While this isn’t that much on its own, I doubt that the Live Remote Tournament format could support a worlds level competition in its current state. I also doubt it will be ready to do so in just four months.
Again, I commend the RECF and GDC for working fast to give teams a season this year. The Live Remote Tournament format was a great solution given the situation, and I think it will be extremely useful for early competitions in the 2021-2022 season. However, I don’t think we’ve had enough time with the technology to run championship events through it.
The RECF staff has significantly improved the LRT technology. Our biggest challenges now are actually more related to setup than the actual technology.
I guess my first 2 years of VRC will be virtual lol. (Not like I would have had any chance of getting into worlds last year)
I notice you are mentioning the upcoming Town Hall quite a bit. Can we except to have a lot of our concerns and questions answered?
Teams will have the option of participating in Live Skills or Live Remote. Live Remote still provides the opportunity for teams to collaborate with another team and strategize based on what the opposing alliances are doing. It’s more challenging being remote but it is an option that some students prefer.
Is this one of my kids or staff??? lol
It came so far so quickly. I’d ask you to give the team a chance to keep working. It’s messy, yes, but this would have been a huge program rollout with years of preparation. Thanks to the RECF staff working tirelessly, we have a version of it now.
@DanMantz thanks for consistently sticking around to answer our questions after announcements. I know we can be a tough crowd, but we really appreciate that you do this for us.