VEX Robotics Expands Into Elementary With Launch Of VEX IQ

[Ricky Q.]

VEX Robotics Expands Into Elementary With Launch Of VEX IQ
Technologically Advanced, Tool-less System will Transform STEM Education for Younger Ages

GREENVILLE, Texas, April 19, 2013 – VEX Robotics, Inc., announced today the launch of VEX IQ, a robotics platform designed to transform STEM learning for young students and their teachers. Students as young as eight can jump right in and snap robots together using this intuitive, tool-less platform while educators can utilize the free VEX IQ Curriculum to help teach them valuable lessons and skills that are needed in today's changing world.

“The VEX IQ platform is truly a revolution for STEM education at younger ages,” said Paul Copioli, president of VEX Robotics. “We’ve taken our years of experience in educational robotics and created a simple, powerful and flexible platform for students and teachers alike.”

The VEX IQ system was designed to be simple and easy for students to use. Structural pieces snap together and come apart without tools, allowing for quick build times and easy modifications. A variety of gears, wheels and other accessories allows for complete customization of VEX IQ projects and mobile robots.

The Robot Brain takes high-end, powerful technology and simplifies it for educational use while keeping a high ceiling. Up to 12 Smart Port devices can be connected to the Robot Brain, which can then be controlled by built-in programs or programmed via a computer and compatible software program. In addition to using pre-programmed instructions, VEX IQ robots can be controlled by drivers using the Controller.

Free graphical programming software, powered by Modkit, allows for custom robot commands, sensor interaction and more and is included in every VEX IQ Kit. ROBOTC for VEX IQ, created by Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy, allows robot programming in C. The VEX Assembler powered by Autodesk 123D adapts the power of Autodesk's advanced 3D modeling tools, giving students the ability to assemble and test VEX IQ mechanisms and robots virtually.

VEX IQ Starter Kits are priced at $249.99 The VEX IQ Super Kit is $299.99. Kits are available for pre-order now and will begin shipping in June.

In addition to transforming STEM education in the classroom, VEX IQ will be used in the VEX IQ Challenge presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, an extracurricular STEM program for elementary and middle school students (ages 8 to 14). The power of the VEX IQ system combined with the REC Foundation's years of experience inspiring students through robotics competitions is giving younger students more affordable access to the inspiration, excitement and learning that comes from participating in a STEM challenge.

For more information on VEX IQ, visit www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq

For more information on the VEX IQ Challenge, visit RobotEvents.com (http://www.robotevents.com)

[Gregor]

Totally blown away, I'm very impressed. This is fantastic.

[dcarr]

Looks awesome. I'd be curious to see a comparison to Lego offerings from someone who's more familiar with them. We want to invest in some kits for a camp we're running this summer, and it's now a tossup between something Arduino based, Mindstorms, or now this.

[Steven Donow]

Looks awesome. I'd be curious to see a comparison to Lego offerings from someone who's more familiar with them. We want to invest in some kits for a camp we're running this summer, and it's now a tossup between something Arduino based, Mindstorms, or now this.

To me, it looks like this can make a great thing for middle school. FLL does sometimes seem to be too low-level for these kids(especially 8th grade) and this seems like the perfect transition.

I absolutely love all of this new stuff. I wish I had that Autodesk program when i was learning CAD

[jason_zielke]

I watched the announcement live on the VEX World Championship webcast and I was thoroughly impressed.

Missing from the above release is that Project Lead the Way (PLTW) will be launching a K-5 curriculum with the system in the Fall 2014. I think the feeder system for all existing FRC teams (and the potential future teams) is going to get much more robust in the near future.

The feeder programs are going to continue to grow at an even faster pace now...all the FRC teams out there need to figure out how to make room for all the excited (and probably well trained) students that will be coming up in the future.

This is great news for growing STEM education! :)

[mman1506]

The smart motors are really neat. They have there own MSP430's and a encoder. I am guessing they operate over I2C so I wonder if they will ever make them first legal.

[Billfred]

The smart motors are really neat. They have there own MSP430's and a encoder. I am guessing they operate over I2C so I wonder if they will ever make them first legal.

Nothing is impossible--the Vex 393 motor is legal this year--but it would require IFI to make a sizeable donation to get them legal (they offered one and the related speed controller to every team in FRC through a PDV).

In any case, I'm intrigued by the possibilities. I know that software was the thorn in my side as a camp counselor with limited time to run the show using RCX-era Mindstorms robots; the kids used IR remotes a lot of times as a fallback. Having a stout R/C setup built in would certainly have a lot of appeal if the rest of the platform bears out.

[coalhot]

I'm loving the new system. Really tempted to get one for myself.

Also loving the new VEX game. It's intrigued me enough to consider starting/joining a team and building a college bot.

[PayneTrain]

To me, it looks like this can make a great thing for middle school. FLL does sometimes seem to be too low-level for these kids(especially 8th grade) and this seems like the perfect transition.

I absolutely love all of this new stuff. I wish I had that Autodesk program when i was learning CAD

I don't know about VRC, but I know FTC has started to reach into middle schools to start teams at that level, which I think is a great way to go. By 8th grade you see these giant robots you know you get to touch next year and FL seems kinda small in comparison.

[akoscielski3]

The amount of work Vex has done to really try and revolutionize Education is amazing. With the range of programs now no school or board has an excuse not to implement Vex or any other Robotics Program into all of the schools. I can't wait to walk into any school and see kids and teens building and learning what they are interested in, instead of being told what they have to learn and know.

Thank You VEX!

[Ivan Malik]

I don't know about VRC, but I know FTC has started to reach into middle schools to start teams at that level, which I think is a great way to go.

Don't quote me, but I think in Michigan ALL FTC teams are middle school level... via some FiM pilot type thing. But I can't find any reference other than a vague reference on the splash page for FTC at FiM's website, to verify this.

[PayneTrain]

Don't quote me, but I think in Michigan ALL FTC teams are middle school level... via some FiM pilot type thing. But I can't find any reference other than a vague reference on the splash page for FTC at FiM's website, to verify this.

That's great to hear. I think FTC is a great middle school program. I know we are trying to introduce the program to middle schools in Virginia, and I hope that the moving to districts in 2015 will move many high school FTC teams to FRC.

[EricH]

I'm loving the new system. Really tempted to get one for myself.

I took one look at the site and immediately started thinking along similar lines. And that was before I looked at what products are currently listed.

[Foster]

;tl;dr; I believe that Robots Rock, pick a platform, pick a competition, go build a robot!

I've done VEX since 2006, first with High School Students and then a focus on Middle School. We started focusing on Middle School with the intent of using our program as a feeder to the FRC team at the high school level.

VEX is perfect for middle school. Metal parts, gearing, limited motors, limited other parts means think "outside the box, but inside this world". Lots of great robots come from that. We send roboteers off to FRC with "righty tighty" skills and a ton of practical, things that they know work.

FRC is think outside a much bigger box, and our roboteers love it. Well about 70% do, the other 30% go "Wait, I have constant access to the bot". But we go "Yes, less bot time, but CAD, machining parts, welding, MORE POWER, bigger robots, more team work and a cool hat" http://wiki.team1640.com/index.php?title=File:SpyGear.png

So we do feed FRC.

Turn 180 degrees, to the FLL roboteers. They build Lego robots and program. The Chief Roboteer of that program is Scott Featherman, who sinks thousands hours into that effort. A cool part of FLL is that the roboteers are Lego ninjas. And they are backed by billions of parts. So they are not constrained by the "KOP" They have access to every brick ever made. Scott does elementary, I focus on middle, feed FRC (and some roboteers stay VEX high school)

"FTC??" Yes, not a lot in this area. I run STEM Robotics. I get calls about "I want to start a robot team" We give them grant money to start, some mentor training, hook them up with a VEX team and off they go.

Except in areas where not a big VEX base but a huge FTC base (Looking at all the teams J&J sponsored on the right Coast). So we give them grant money, point them to a FTC team, and off they go.

Too late to make a long story short. Love FRC, VEX and FLL. Looking at the new VEX IQ parts, but it needs to fit into our existing structure. I have a limited amount of $$$ to spend, so it needs to be cost effective.

I'm excited to see the new VEX parts, but I want them to be Lego compatible. I want to leverage Lego build skills that they have now to new / better robots. Not so interested in reinventing the wheel. But I'll preorder my kit, I want to see for myself.

[Dinoyan]

Looks awesome, They should use it for FLL.

[Jaxom]

FLL does sometimes seem to be too low-level for these kids(especially 8th grade)
Then they're not doing it right. ;) There's nothing low-level about FLL, imo; that's one of the attractions. There are challenges there for adults; 8th graders have plenty to think about. And remember, outside the US & Canada FLL goes to age 16. If you're at CMP stop by the FLL pits & take a look at what some of the World teams come with. There are some very sophisticated robots. And it's cheaper -- and easier to transport -- than even FTC for those high school age kids.

Looks awesome, They should use it for FLL.
It would be hard to do this; that first "L" in FLL stands for "LEGO". :] I'm sure FIRST could come up with a nice, new, name, but LEGO works great for the intended audience; I don't see any compelling reason to ditch it.

Looks awesome. I'd be curious to see a comparison to Lego offerings from someone who's more familiar with them.
I took at look at the VEX IQ kits this morning & am quite impressed. They have some definate advantages over LEGO Mindstorms; two of the biggies that immediately stood out to me are:
1) The ability to hook 12 devices to the controller, with no restriction on what device goes where. Mindstorms is limited to 3 outputs & 4 inputs, although the soon-to-be-available EV3 adds a 4th output. Which still isn't close to the VEX IQ controller.
2) Price. The kit itself is basically the same price, but some of the additional VEX IQ parts are FAR less expensive. $20 vs. $60 for a rechargeable battery; $5 vs. $18 for a touch sensor. The motors are about the same price, though.

Statements like "supports event programming to simplify software" on the sensors intrigue me. If that means what I think it means that's another advantage to add over Mindstorms & NXT-G. I don't know about EV3, yet, so this might be moot.

One minus was the field elements & field itself. Just the elements for the 2013-14 game are more expensive ($100) than the FLL field kit ($75) and $200 for a "full field perimeter and tiles" seems hideously expensive. You can build an FLL table for around $50. If you're doing this for a non-competition STEM program this part really won't matter, of course.

I've got too much investment in FLL & LEGO to switch over (my play money this summer is going to an EV3), and there are no tournaments anywhere close to us. But it looks like it has great possibilities, and if this stirs up some competition with LEGO -- resulting in better products & prices for both companies -- then that's a Very Good Thing.

[Gregor]

Why is the half field kit and full field kit listed at the same price?

http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/products/228-2550.html

http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/products/228-3051.html

[Ricky Q.]

Why is the half field kit and full field kit listed at the same price?

http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/products/228-2550.html

http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/products/228-3051.html

Launch error - got that fixed now.

Thanks,
Ricky

[ttldomination]

One minus was the field elements & field itself. Just the elements for the 2013-14 game are more expensive ($100) than the FLL field kit ($75) and $200 for a "full field perimeter and tiles" seems hideously expensive. You can build an FLL table for around $50. If you're doing this for a non-competition STEM program this part really won't matter, of course.

I've got too much investment in FLL & LEGO to switch over (my play money this summer is going to an EV3), and there are no tournaments anywhere close to us. But it looks like it has great possibilities, and if this stirs up some competition with LEGO -- resulting in better products & prices for both companies -- then that's a Very Good Thing.

Honestly, I think that the price is worth it for the field. I'm fairly certain the field basics will be used over and over. Of course, don't forget that these kits are modular, which makes transportation super easy.

My team is not particularly invested in FLL, but our region is dense with FLL teams. We'd like to inject some VIQ teams into our region, but FLL might simply be too rooted for VIQ to succeed.

- Sunny G.

[bbonahoom]

Looks awesome, They should use it for FLL.

FLL = FIRST LEGO League

I don't think you can do FLL with the Vex IQ because the name would have to change :]

At first glance, I am excited about the Vex IQ as another tool to help teach the kids robotics. I am interested in seeing the programming software. That will be a large determining factor in the effectiveness of younger kids being able to program a robot.

I don't see the hardware platform as an advantage or disadvantage to LEGO Mindstorms except that kids are generally familiar with LEGO pieces and there is an extensive pallet of pieces available to build your robot.

I am a mentor to support the kids. The platform isn't that meaningful to me as long as the kids can use it effectively to achieve their goals.

Play well,
Bryan

[skimoose]

** DISCLAIMER ** The lead designer on the Vex IQ project was my son. It's nice to finally see what he has been working on since joining IFI. I'll check the proud father here. The rest of this post will only be my observations and personal opinions will be kept in check. :D

My wife and I were asked to referee on the then Vex pilot fields (now Vex IQ) at the Vex World Championships. I was head referee on the main fields and Joy was lead referee on the Vex IQ skills fields.

- Robust Robots. The first thing that impressed us about the new system was the robustness of the robots the students built. One of the things that has been missed in the early conversations about this product is that the Vex IQ system was designed for full 3D assembly. Those that have built LEGO robots know it can be challenging to get good cross reinforcing and these robots love to shed parts occasionally. Very few robots lost parts during over 350 qualification matches! Most could have avoided losing parts with a little more work strengthening some parts subjected to higher moment forces.

- Driver Control. Here is where LEGO needs to step up their game. The students LOVED being able to drive their robots. This is usually where the middle school students start looking to move on from FLL to FTC, VRC, and FRC.

- Object Manipulation. While the pilot Vex IQ robots were using standard Vex tank tread, the production Vex IQ will have their own tank tread/conveyor system which is very similar. I watched dozens of robots with tank tread intake and delivery systems easily handling the tennis balls used in the pilot game. At least three robots were capable of collecting and scoring all 18 tennis balls on their side of the field in a single attempt. I'm not sure if the same could be accomplished with a LEGO robot as elegantly or efficiently.

- Ease of Use. I believe the pilot teams only had about five weeks to build these Vex IQ robots to play the pilot game. As with any competitive robots program, the robots varied from fairly simple to awesomely complex machines. It was amazing to see the quality of machines built in a limited amount of time. I was not able to gauge how many teams had prior LEGO experience, but clearly the students took to the new system easily.

- Durability. LEGO has been around for years and has that real world testing to back up the durability or lack there of. We will see how Vex IQ stands up over the next few seasons.

- Cross Compatibility. I did not have the opportunity to test for cross compatibility between Vex IQ and LEGO bricks. I suspect that when people start playing with both systems we'll learn of some ingenious ways people find to use both systems together. Whether this is ever allowed in competitive robots will yet to be determined, but for summer camps, demonstrations, and other public educational uses, I'm sure we'll figure out how to leverage both platforms together.

- Software. This will be determined once we get to work with the software offerings, but the demonstrations were very impressive and encouraging.

- Classroom Curriculum. Project Lead the Way at the elementary level. Awesome. Vex IQ is will have full classroom curriculum support through PLTW, Carnegie Mellon, and Autodesk. Catching students imaginations earlier in their education will be key to changing the world. FIRST needs to step up their game in this arena.

- The Game Format. This new format was received very well by all students that participated. Two robots on the field at the same time. One red. One blue. Sounds familiar, but the two robots are the alliance. They score cooperatively throughout the match. There is a subtle way for a team to score a few points more than their alliance partner, but it doesn't cause a non-cooperative environment during match play. Even when a team of much older middle school students were allied with a much younger team of elementary school students they worked as a team and the older students didn't try to tell the younger students what to do.

- Research Project. We did not get to see the research project or speak to any of the judges so I have little to share on this subject. Students will be keeping and being judged on their engineering notebooks just like the other levels of Vex robotics, and they will have an engineering project which is similar to the FLL research project. This makes both programs fairly similar and beneficial to the students.

- The Playing Field. It has been point out that the new Vex IQ playing field will have a higher initial investment cost than the FLL field. It has also been pointed out that the new Vex IQ field is extremely portable. The pieces break down into 12" square tiles and side walls are 12" long pieces. They will fit into two boxes that would easily fit into a compact car or a classroom closet. How many of you have tried to transport and/or store a FLL playing field? How about enough fields for a large state-wide event? This new system should be much friendlier to tournament organizers. Since playing fields tend to be a one time purchase, this is probably a minor problem. Price to FLL. Storage and transport to Vex IQ. Durability TBD.

- Game Specific Components. This will be determined over the next few seasons. Again I think price goes to FLL but storage, transport, and set up go to Vex IQ. Again, this is a once per year investment, and the cost is offset by Vex IQ's lower team registration fees.

- Team Fees. Price goes to Vex IQ. as mentioned above, if you support several teams this is a big cost savings and would offset the cost of the playing fields and components, and also allows teams to add to their Vex IQ robot parts inventory.

- Conclusion. Is one system better than the other? That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that competition has come to this level of competitive robots. That is a good thing. As we all know, competition helps all of us end users. Lower prices. Better products. Better support and services. We will all be winners (especially the students) with competition. Since we as a community are barely scratching the surface of how many students we are reaching, this will open up competitive robots to many more students.
Win. Win. Win.

[Mr.Smoky15]

In my opinion, this looks to be better at preparing students for FTC/VEX/FRC than FLL currently does. I'm actually trying to recommend this to some elementary schools in our district to see how things go. Hopefully, this turns out to be a winner, as Hazelwood school district keeps improving the base around the flagship FRC teams 2408 and 1985.

[alb4h]

Was it a fun game to watch?

[Siri]

** DISCLAIMER ** The lead designer on the Vex IQ project was my son. It's nice to finally see what he has been working on since joining IFI. I'll check the proud father here. The rest of this post will only be my observations and personal opinions will be kept in check. :DIs there any video of the pilot matches? This is so cool!

[lynca]

Is there any video of the pilot matches? This is so cool!

VEX IQ Pilot video match
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCHqpTKnOE0