Vex Competition Idea

[Nuttyman54]

that sounds like an awesome idea, though I seem to recall someone on CD mentioning something like it being done somewhere.

[Hieb]

There was a show similar to this on the DIY channel a few years ago. The show format had collegiate teams in a 16 team bracket, with the teams competing head to head. I'm not sure if each team brought their own supplies or if they had common parts to choose from, but they were given something like 12 hours to design and build, then they would compete. They also had the "mystery item" idea. For example, in one challenge the teams were each given a treadmill, and whichever team used the most parts from the treadmill received a 15 second time bonus or something like that.

I think I like the idea better with the VEX kits. Have both teams starting on equal footing as far as parts available, and then challenge their creativity in solving the problem, not which team has the better equipment/bigger budget.

[KelliV]

Originally Posted by Hieb

There was a show similar to this on the DIY channel a few years ago.

That was Robot Rivals

This idea would be a lot of fun! I would like to see how it turns out.

[Schnabel]

Or you could be mean and give them 1 hour, allow only 1000 parts per robot, and only preprogrammed instructions to use!

[Carol]

MOE did something similar with our VEX in a Day Competition that we put on for the local Ulster Project. There were nine Vex teams consisting of Northern Ireland Catholic and Protestant students, their host students in the US, and a MOE student serving as a Vex mentor. They arrived in the morning and had until 1:00 to build a robot when the games began. And they had to learn how to build a robot as well. The robots were just simple square bots used to just push around balls, but the competition was more spirited than you would think. Below is a link to the post on it, and a link our site that describes how to put a similar competition. Also on the link is the video of the day's competition. (I love the Irish accents).

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=527767

http://www.moe365.org/ulster2006.php

[nonother]

This sounds like a really fun idea, but I think it could turn out to be very unfair for smaller teams such as mine. In a situation where time is extremely limited a team that had more people could subdivide tasks much more than a small team. This could perhaps be avoided by limiting the amount of members of a team that could compete. Or maybe most teams are 10 people and it's not worth considering this, I honestly don't know how large most teams are.

[Lil' Lavery]

116 has run a "mini-bot" competition for at least 6 or 7 years now. The last two we've used the vex kit (well really, the last one, tonight will be the 2nd year). Before that we used plywood, scrap metal, and drill motors. We give the students a new game every year, and they have 1-2 meeting to build, then compete. We aim to create simple games that can be played with square-bot level machines. Each group gets about a starter kit worth of parts, give or take some.
This year each team will have about an hour and a half tongiht, and a few hours saturday morning to build, then we compete after lunch on saturday. I'll post pictures/video/results then!