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.
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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.
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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.
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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):
- Is it true, then, that Vex teams can plan to continue to compete as ‘normal’ (for their Region, and as allowed by external variables) through 4/18/2021?
- (With the understanding that as is currently the case some Regions may have in-person, some not, some remote, some skills only, etc and events are, as always, at the discretion of the local EPs.)
- Then at that point the 2021 Worlds spots will be allocated based on whatever is in play at the time (ie regular State allocation, possible skills allocation, possible remote live allocation).
- Then whoever gets those 2021 Worlds spots can decide to compete in May EITHER in the remote live LRT event OR in the live remote skills event?
- (Or possibly they can compete only in the event they have received a spot for, by doing that type of event?)
- Then in addition to the above there will (possibly) be multi-regional in-person events in May (and June?) that teams can potentially compete at, the winners of which will go on to compete at a relatively tiny ‘not-really-a-Worlds-just-a-final-chance-to-compete’ in-person (possibly) end-of-season event?
- How are the teams who can compete in these multi-regional events selected?
- Are the multi-regional events similar then to Signature Events?
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Could not agree more.
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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).
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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.
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The RECF staff has significantly improved the LRT technology. Our biggest challenges now are actually more related to setup than the actual technology.
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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.
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Is this one of my kids or staff??? lol
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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.
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@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.
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We are currently planning to have an in person VEX U event in June.
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Since I have joined the REC Foundation, we have made a conscience effort to make State / Regional Championships the goal for teams because less than 8% of VEX Robotics teams qualify for VEX Worlds. We have invested close to $500,000 to improve these events. So I just want to say thank you for recognizing the importance of state / regional championships.
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If states don’t have state championships, due to resources and team numbers, what will happen to their worlds spots?
Sorry I’m so slow at responding…
Yes, we will play the 2020/21 game to qualify for the 2021/22 VEX Robotics World Championship. We already have qualifiers from the previous season qualify for worlds (Excellence Award Winners and Community Award winners for example). I understand your comment but we are trying to end the season with an in person event and want to at least provide something to the tournament champions and Excellence Award Winners.
We have spots because of anticipated increase in capacity in Dallas. I promise you that we will not be taking spots from regions .
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