VEX V5 Robotics Competition
At a glance
The VEX V5 Robotics Competition (V5RC) is a program where students form teams to build robots. These robots are then operated by the team to compete in a game, with the game changing every year.
The specific rules of the game changes every year, but the baseline guidelines stay the same:
the game is played on a 12ft x 12ft field.
a match is played in a 2 v 2 format, with two teams joining forced to form an alliance. The alliance then works together to compete against the opposing alliance.
V5RC robots follows a whitelist system, with only parts explicitly allowed by VEX can be used on the robot.
all V5RC teams are recommended to write an Engineering Notebook, a journal that records your team's scheduling, planning, development, testing, and reflections throughout the developmental journey of your robot. This notebook can then be submitted at competitions for awards (see below).
V5RC abides by the RECF Student-Centered Policy, meaning that even though coaches/supervisors are allowed to teach and mentor, they are barred from helping students in the development, building or documenting the robot in any way.
At a competition
When attending a competition, you will most likely experience the following:
Robot Inspection
Before anything, your robot will be brought to the inspection desk, where volunteers ensure your robot abides by all the requirements set in the rulebook. This is also your chance to submit your engineering notebook.
Pit
The pit is where all the teams are when not competing. Each team will be assigned a table where they can rest or work on the robot.
Practice Field
This is not a always guarantee, but some competitions will have a practice field set up that teams can use to test and fix their robots, though some competitions may require you to sign-up for a time.
Practice Rounds
Not to be confused with practice fields, practice rounds are matches that occur before official matches begin to give teams a chance to practice, they usually appear at larger competitions.
Qualification Rounds
This is the real stuff. Qualification rounds are matches you play to determine your ranking. You will be assigned a random alliance and color each round, where you must work together against the opposing alliance.
Pit display
This is a display that usually appears... in the pit, it displays every team's name, ranking (a combination of win points, autonomous points, and strength of schedule points, more information here) , along with upcoming matches.
Interviews
Throughout the duration of qualification matches, judges will go around the pit area and interview teams about their robot. This is not only an assessment of authenticity, its also a chance to demonstrate your team's design process and thinking. (More information here)
Skills
Unlike the aforementioned matches, a skills match is only played by one team at a time, with a different field setup. The goal of a skills match is to score as high as possible. Both driver skills and programming skills are available.
Alliance Selection
At the end of qualification, this happens. The top X (number varies by size of competition) teams will become alliance captains, they will then select another team to be their alliance partner for the rest of the event, the selected team can reject or accept. Teams that are not alliance captains & are not selected are eliminated.
Elimination Rounds
After alliance selection is finished, elimination rounds begin. This is played in a competition-bracket style matchup, where (the now consistent) alliances are pitted against each other, with the winners climbing up the bracket, and the losers being eliminated.
Awards
At the end of the event, awards are given out to teams, these are seperated into Judged Awards and Performance Awards. Performance Awards are determined by rank, with the elimination bracket winner obtaining the "Tournament Champion" award. Judged awards, however, take into account your engineering notebook, your robot, team interview, etc. Awards like the Innovate award is given to a team that highlights an innovative aspect of their robot in their engineering notebook. At some events, awards can qualify for a higher-level event, eg. ACAMIS North -> ACAMIS Nationals -> VEX Worlds. In most cases in Chinese intl. school leagues, this award is the Excellence Award.
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