Milwaukee VEX League

[Kevin Kolodziej]

At the risk of tooting our own horn a bit right now, I'd like to introduce everyone to the Milwaukee VEX League. Let me start with a bit of history:

Last year, a small VEX league was formed in the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin. Competitions would be held every two weeks, giving teams a chance to update their designs and become more competitive each week. This league was a bit of a hike for teams from the Milwaukee area, however.

Over the last year or two, the Milwaukee FIRST Support Organization (MFSO) at MSOE has been talking about creating a small competition in the fall that would be open to all local high schools. The idea never saw much progress, however, as the club has virtually no funding and fund raising efforts did not go so well. Without being able to create a prototype robot to show schools what they would be building, the club did not get very far.

Enter VEX. An affordable robotic system perfect for small competitions like the one we were trying to come up with. A team that was involved with the Fox Valley league last year has created a FIRST team (#1714) and wanted to continue their involvement with FIRST. At the same time, The Ultimate Protection Squad (UPS #1675) was looking for something to do in the preseason months to get all of the new students brought up to speed.

The leaders of both teams and myself have now created this Milwaukee VEX League. For this first year, it is limited to VEX teams from within our two FRC teams, but will be expanded next year (after we work out all the kinks). The MFSO has designed a game for the league called "Bottle Battle." Competitions are being held each Wednesday night for 3 weeks, rotating between schools. After the competition each Wednesday, a new game element is presented to the group so that the challenge for the following week changes without requiring a complete redesign of the robots.

Rules for "Bottle Battle" can be found at the MFSO website and will be updated each week. Some images of the week 1 competition from last night can be found here and here .

This initial league is a preseason in itself for the Wisconsin State VEX Tournament that we will be organizing for November and December. On November 5th we will be releasing this year's game challenge to 20 teams from Wisconsin. The tournament will be held on December 4th. Registration information will be on http://wirobotics.org/ by Friday or Monday.

We are hoping to make this a huge event in preparation for 2006, when the league and tournament will take on a slightly different and expanded format.

Please let us know what you think so that we can make this the league as fun and educational as possible!

Kevin Kolodziej

[dubious elise]

Wowie! I had no idea that this even existed!

I really wish that you could have posted something about this sooner, I don't check WIRED very often and I must have missed this. I think it is a great idea and I would love to try to get my team involved, if we have the chance.

We have two VEX bots right now and have just been allowing individual team members to tinker with them one week at a time, but I think that having a competition-like goal would be great motivation.

Kevin, is there any age limit or restriction on the number of robots that one school could bring to said competitions? Also, would it be open strictly to FISRT-registered VEX teams or could other groups with the kits be able to join in as well?

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Elise,

See my PM I sent to you about your team and its involvement. There is no limit on # of teams from one school. We prefer HS students (standard FIRST age restrictions), but I dont' have a problem with others. It is open to everyone, FRC or other.

KEv

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Since the week 1 game rules have been replaced by the week 2 game rules on the official MFSO site, here are permanent links for week 1 and week 2 (to be played this Wednesday). When week three is released on Wednesday, I will host it as well. Pictures of week 2 to come after Wednesday night - stay tuned!!

Week 1
Week 2

Kev

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Changes to week 3 are very simple - its the week 2 game with alliances! The second robot must start IN the scoring zone (on the ramps count as in). Pictures from week 2 will be up shortly.

This is the 3rd and final week of this preliminary League. So far, it has been a resounding success. The kickoff for the State Tournament will be November 5th, next Saturday, and the event it shaping up to be something very special.

Kev

[JVN]

Kevin,
It is great to see what you guys are doing up there.

Keep up the good work, and keep us all posted!

JV

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Attention FIRST community: We have open spots in our Wisconsin State VEX Tournament! We are now opening this up to anyone and everyone that is interested. The game will be released this Saturday (November 5th), and the tournament will be here in Milwaukee on December 4th. Registration is only $25 per team! We currently have 15 teams signed up and are looking to increase to 20 or 24 if there is that much interest!

If your team is interested, PM me so I can get you the info on how to register.

We hope to see you!!

:::To Clarify: This is NOT an official FIRST VEX Competition and it is NOT a way to qualify a VEX team for Atlanta. This is a game that we put together for fun as a preseason activity.:::

Kevin

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Who's Got the über Tuber?

You do!!

The game for the Wisconsin State VEX Tournament was unveiled today and can be found at http://www.wirobotics.org/vex/2005/challenge.html in html and .pdf formats.

We want to thank WPI for allowing us to modify their Savage Soccer game from last year. This allowed us to get off the ground much quicker than if we would have had to start from scratch. I hope everyone finds this version of the game very exciting.

We are still looking for more teams and registration is only $25, so if you are interested, we'd love to have you!

Kev