Will 2020-2021 season of Vex be canceled this year

Hi guys I was thinking that Vex might be canceled this year. Due to Covid-19 and all the things happening in the world make me come to thought that may be Vex Season might be canceled. In our county they are still figuring out how to open schools.

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no

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Bro I’m going to lose my mind if they do that.

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Same here

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Same tho. I will lose my mind. I sure hope not. Like Xenon once famously said:

No

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So far our discussions locally have been around how to support events safely and that depends on a lot of factors - some within our control, some outside. End of day - events should be as safe as possible.

That said, the season may look very different from past ones.

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I don’t know what I’d do with myself if this season was canceled

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It probs won’t be cancelled but I don’t think worlds will be the same either. Recently, I made the choice to not participate this year seen as I’m pretty much expecting the vaccine to only be in extensive use in the first half of next year. My parents r kinda freaking out abt this stuff so no comps until vaccine, and thus my season ended without even starting. Honestly I think a lot of other teams will do the same. People are saying that change up is easy but honestly it’s kind of lucky cause it’ll be easier for school teams to build good robots. Regardless, the world champion will probably be the team who had the most access to their robot.

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I really don’t think it will be cancelled. Most places are recovering and almost back to normal by now. Only a few select places still have it bad like nyc but the rest of ny is opening up already. That said, it will probably look a lot different. Events will probably be smaller and there will be sanitation measures until a vaccine is distributed. I don’t think it’s something to worry about unless your comp is really early season.

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Depending on when an effective vaccine is created, competitions might be delayed so that they at towards the end of the season. Another possibility I came up with is a universal procedure for competitions until the COVID19 situation gets better. Some requirements for events could be ;

  • Limit on number of teams
  • temperature checks at a venue is a requirement
  • health surveys ( questions would include things like whether you have had any symptoms, traveled etc.)
  • spaced out pit areas
  • masks?
  • etc

This is not real, just my thoughts these past few weeks on how the 2020-2021 season might look,

Edit: I certainly hope the season isn’t canceled this year, as I am also looking forward to meeting other teams in our area and going to competitions.

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In no way do I represent VEX nor do I have inside information, however I do understand how adults and companies think and I know what the plans of Bay Area companies are.

Honestly it is probably canceled. Not formally yet, but highly likely.

  1. If I understand it correctly [Nope didn’t] the GDC is holding back the game. Why? So they can reuse it iff they decide to cancel the season and/or not have to bear the brunt of the backlash if they were to announce a game and subsequently have to cancel.

  2. Liability. This is the big one. Companies don’t want to be liable for the virus. One person gets hurt, dies, whatever as a result of a single regional and VEX could have a multi-million dollar lawsuit and a PR disaster on their hands.

  3. Many other companies are suspending operations up to 2021. Up to Jan at least. If this runs that far, there is no time in the year left to actually have a competition season. At some point here, even if they can have a season, the effort required to push it through exceeds employees willingness to actually do it. There’s a lot of firefighting and heroics required to get things done under tighter deadlines.

  4. Profit. If this year is going to be a bust profit-wise anyway, why do the very expensive world-championship and other higher profile events. Esp. if the risk-reward isn’t there. If it costs a lot of money to do, and is highly likely to garner negative results (someone getting sick, some bad press, whatever) then it’s a bad call. People who run companies are not Mavericks, they are hyper risk-averse people. Their job is to no allow the boat to rock, to keep it stable and their decision making will go down the path of most stability pretty much always.

It’s better for them to wait this out, play it safe, and come back strong than to stick their necks out there and possibly risk a really disorganized highly risky season. I don’t know what they’ll do, right now I imagine they’re probably in a holding pattern hoping things get better by August. But once school starts back up, if there’s no announcement, it’s 99% over.

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Holding back the game? It game out at the normal time.

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Ah it looks like the game is out? I thought I read that it wasn’t announced yet. Sorry.

Are we doing Gateway again… That’s an interesting decision. Maybe they should cancel it :joy:

Gateway was IMHO, the worst VRC game ever. Don’t mind saying that out loud.

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Why though? Was it too simple? Too complicated? Too easy of a meta?

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They divided the field into 3 impassable-by-rule chunks. It’s SUPER fun only being able to drive 20 some odd inches to the left or right.

The white and black pegs decided the whole game.

If your alliance partner sucked, half of the scoring opportunities were 100% out of reach to you.

Objects were too large and bulky, nothing clever could allow a team to do anything with them other than hold one or two.

No “good” design emerged because there just really wasn’t a good design that was possible.

It was just in general a badly designed game.

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Much of those in VEX sees this new season as kinda disappointing due to the sheer bleakness, and I definitely agree. And knowing the bleakness, it would be a cherry on top to cancel worlds. That being said, I highly doubt worlds will be cancelled, especially when almost all locations in Texas have opened up now.

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in my mind these points could be applied to almost every game in vex. The gateway objects were a joke in size compared to some of the more recent games. The whole “losing because of a bad alliance partner” concept has always existed in the high school and middle school divisions.

Also uhhh teams could definitely hold more than 1 or 2 objects :slight_smile:

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Yeah I remember the telescoping stacking robots. It was impractical.

I’m just thinking about all the independently run regionals. I think this all has to come down to where are the case numbers in Aug.

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Next season could be cancelled, but it will be hard to tell for a few months.

My advice:

  1. Expect that worlds and the season will be cancelled (if it happens, hey lucky bonus)
  2. Build, program, CAD, and strategize like you have a comp tomorrow morning. (if the season happens, you are ahead of the game. If it doesn’t, you still have the experience)
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I would hope regionals could happen in at least some form depending on individual area’s cases, but I wouldn’t be surprised if anything beyond that is cancelled.

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