VEX IQ vs. LEGO EV3

[Allison K]

Originally Posted by BSV

In my mind, using a fully autonomous robot should require a lot more programming finesse than "driving" a remote controlled one. At least in my field, people who have scientific expertise AND can program (code up and test) scientific ideas) are golden. From a kid's perspective, why learn how to program when you can remote control the whole thing? That's kind of opposite of what we are trying to achieve.

VEX IQ does integrate autonomous control in the skills challenge portions of a tournament, and as part of the consideration for the overall winner. Qualifying matches are two teams working together to score the most points in a driver control match, and then separately each team gets an equal number of attempts at both a driver skills challenge (teleoperated) and a programming skills challenge (autonomous) as the sole team on the field. The first place team in each skills challenge is awarded at each event, and in my area the programming skills challenge ranking is used to fill in state championship qualifying spots created by teams double qualifying. All three of those elements, plus the project judging and engineering notebook judging are used to determine the excellence award winner at events. The autonomous is much less of a focal point than it is in FLL however.

Last note and then I'll stop thread cluttering for a bit. It occurs to me that much of my stress with FLL is probably a regional issue with time crunch issues. Public schools here aren't allowed to start until after labor day (so as not to inhibit tourism, or something) and qualifying events start the second weekend of November (because they want all FLL done before FRC starts), resulting in only about 9 weeks of meeting time to get everything done before our one and only shot at a qualifying event (each team only gets one event here). Areas that don't have that particular combination of time constraints and single event pressure probably have a much more manageable and valuable FLL option.

Edited to add: I looked it up and Minnesota's FLL State Championship takes place in February (rather than our early December), and now I am a little bit jealous.

Also edited to add: The moral of the story is that overall quality of the competition experience appears to be highly dependent upon regional differences.

[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.

[Foster]

I've been using the IQ since it came out. In our area (South East Pennsylvania) there was a very strong VEX metal program at the middle school. Since RECF is pushing IQ for middle school, IQ has become more popular.

It's lower cost has made it a viable program with home school / small charter schools.

Originally Posted by lucas.alvarez96

VEX IQ doesn't really have a solid IDE. You've got two options: RobotC, which is the usual IDE used for programming the VEX Cortex and PIC microcontrollers, and ModKit for VEX IQ, a web-based graphical IDE, which resembles Scratch.

RobotC is very solid, so I'm not sure what the poster means about not having a good IDE. RobotC works well with the IQ platform. It also works well with the Lego and VEX metal platforms so you have some baseline learning that can go across platforms.

Originally Posted by lucas.alvarez96

The problem is that Modkit is extremely buggy, and resembles an alpha product more than a finished software.

Modkit has been less than a polished product, but it has gotten better in the last release. Having it look like Scratch has been a bonus, since I've run into programmers that already know Scratch, it's an easy transition.

I find that roboteers like to drive and that is the #1 point for VEX IQ, the way that the joysticks are a key component and are integrated well into the platform.

The integrated motor/controllers are very nice. The ability to get good positioning information at the motor is great. This lets roboteers use the motors as rotational devices and / or servos (or switch back and forth in the software).

The IQ design team took a lot from VEX Metal learnings. Large number of IO ports for motors and sensors, a good lineup of sensors that work well. Multiline display panel on the "brain" makes it a good place to put debug information. I also use the RGB LED displays as debug outputs / driver displays. (We've seen recent CD posts about using LED's to tell the driver when things are in position, same concept on the Button/RGB display. )

Mechanical parts are good. Everything is held together with friction pins that are easy to assemble and to take apart. While IQ contests are to be cooperative matches, there is still some banging and bumping. Most robots hold up well and don't come apart.

There is a VEX IQ Forum that you should check out. There are some videos and there is a entire section on robots that people have built. Online Tech Support is also there.

You might want to post some of your more detailed questions on the forum

One of the forum members has moved ALL of the IQ parts into LDRAW - Lego CAD program format to make it easy to do drawings of the robots.

So for me, good parts, RobotC, intelligent motors, intelligent sensors, CAD capability with the much lower cost makes IQ my choice for new robotics teams.

I agree with the "if you already have X stick with X" but the OP said there was not a program at the school.

Which brings the last point, VEX has done a lot with classroom materials. I'd check that out to see if it meets their needs.

Good luck! See you on the VEX IQ forums.