VEX IQ vs. LEGO EV3

[Foster]

One of my pet peeves is the perceived difficulty in running the smaller robot events. I get that FRC needs mongo space, power, etc.

For a VEX IQ event you need a room big enough to hold 12-16 (depending on the number of teams) card tables and the 4*8 field. So a cafeteria is great, or a room at the local fire-hall, church, YMCA, etc works. You will need a laptop to run the scoring software. You will need 2 people with clipboards and the paper score sheets to count the scores up at the end. Since its not a 1 vs 1 event, but a 1 "Helping" 1 event there are not the fouls and stuff to watch for.

So for about $25-30 per team you are good to go. (Based on Fire Hall Rental and the VEXIQ trophy pack (http://www.vexrobotics.com/228-3053.html)

Start at 8 run a ton of matches and be done by 12 (four hours will give everyone about 8 matches)

It's super easy to do. In our area most of the schools will run one event that's how you quickly get 10 events in a season.

If you want to judge the projects then you will need judges for that (2 people) Projects are not hard or complex to look at.

The entire reason I stay in competition robotics is for the competitions. Let me be the first to say "I don't like the projects that are not directly related to the robot". I understand that they are nice, expand roboteers outlook, etc. If you want to do a project oriented event, organize a science fair. I want to see roboteers doing robot engineering on their robot that they are competing with. (If you want to start a side discussion on this, lets do it in another thread, don't derail this one).

12 teams * 2 adults per team = 24 people you can ask to help. So an hour a person gets you more than enough help. In most of our cases there is a big brother/sister/grandparent that we can get to do scoring, etc.

Please don't let the lack of IQ events deter you. If you are in an hour drive of Philly and want to have an event contact me.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by Steven Smith

However, there are currently not enough events and I don't have the bandwidth to start additional ones in the area.

You are in luck. VEXiq is growing rapidly and there will be many events near you soon.

http://www.robotevents.com/robot-com...x-iq-challenge

And like Foster mentions in the post before, starting a VEXiq event is very simple compared to most other competitions.

[ManicMechanic]

I'm not familiar with the Vex IQ kit, so I can't comment there. However, having coached both FLL and a Vex HS team, there there are some program considerations which could be important. Fundamentally, what demographic/population do you serve, and how much/what kind of involvement do they want?

1. The FLL Project is a big draw for teams with mentors and students with no previous background in robotics or programming. There are teams with a poorly functioning robot who win project or core values awards who are willing to stick around for multiple years (and get better at the robotics) because they have an opportunity to succeed in some way. Without that opportunity, they might be tempted to give up.

2. FLL season is typically 3-6 months (Sept. - Nov. and beyond, depending on whether you advance). Some teams benefit from an off-season and get burned out if they compete year-round. While theoretically, you can take an off-season any time with Vex, you feel that you're getting behind other teams that work year-round if you do. When I coached FLL, we typically spent the spring non-competitive season meeting, building, and programming fun projects of the students' own choosing and working on previous years' challenges. The students reported that those times were some of the best times for our team-- a reward, after a season of hard work. We did something similar with Vex, taking an off-year, and a student reported, "I feel happy when I'm in this room", which would have been less true in the throes of competition.

An important consideration is age. There's a tricky trade-off between pushing too much too soon and not pushing enough.

If you want to start students on a path that ends with more intensive/hands-on involvement in higher level robotics, the Vex program is probably the way to go. But if you want to expose and involve a large number of students to STEM who use robotics and/or programming in a more peripheral way, I would go with FLL. Some of my FLL/Vex alumni (college students & grads) have designed products for people with special needs, because they became deeply immersed in the special needs community. They wouldn't have had time to "crossover" to that community if they had focused on performing at the highest levels of Vex. One student even remembered FLL's "No Limits" theme (designing for people with disabilities) and built an engineering project specifically with Universal Design in mind.