Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me
I'm not sold on the year round model like Vex does, for many reasons, but I see some of the benefits and how a lot of the drain and pressure of the FRC season is completely artificial.
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As a long time VEX mentor let me chime in here some. The VEX season is 365 and 1/2 days long, since they announce the game 1/2 way through the VEX championship. Lots of teams are on the new game the next day, the VEX forum is on full blast for the rest of April and the first part of May.
Once summer hits in the US, not many teams are working on things. We have a VEX summer camp in July for a week to give teams a chance to look / touch the game elements.
Most US teams start up in mid September and really start building. First events start appearing in Nov / Dec, with a bulk of them in Jan / Feb. Last World Qualification event happens 5.5 weeks before Worlds to allow teams to make plans.
In other countries, like New Zealand, they build in their winter (June, July, August) and have their world qualification events done by the end of February. for what it's worth, NZ runs about 25 events in a season, and 100 teams go to their country championships. They put the "competition" in competition robotics.
My teams (12 of them now in Delaware) meet about 2 hours a week with a 4 hour Saturday session before the first event and again before states (it's like our Bag and Tag frenzy). So there less time involved per week, but there are more weeks. I estimate that the roboteers do about 80-100 hours of build and compete in 3 events. (As an FYI, I clock about ~700 hours in a year doing robotics, still far less than what Koko Ed does)
Because of the spread of events (first event late May, last event early March) there is a convergence of designs. Last game (tossing balls into a basket/net) converged on wheeled shooters and punchers. So you don't see the full diversity of design like you do for FRC.
Pros to the VEX
-- Longer build means some flexibility in the schedule, a long chunk of bad weather isn't a big deal.
-- I'm home for dinner at least 3 nights a week during the busy part (Jan-April)
-- Trips to Worlds come with 5 weeks of lead time
-- For teams that want to do the outreach, build season isn't crushing them.
-- We co-exist with sports since we span many sport seasons
Cons
-- There is always a robot thing going on
-- Convergent designs
Neither
-- There is always a last min frenzy to complete the robot
