This year our team has unfortunately decided to take a year off from the FIRST FRC competition. Instead we have decided to do the Skillsusa robotics competition. As team captain I have been doing some research on the competition and have a quick question. Is the Skillsusa Mobile Robotics competition the same as the Vex Robotics competition? Not sure if anyone on here would know the answer to that or not but if you do it would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Team 1824
FRC and SkillsUSA are vastly different.
SkillsUSA robotics competition is oriented toward training students in a field broadly described as industrial arts. There are contests for welding, cooking, HVAC, networking, and a ton of other stuff.
The SkillsUSA robotics competition involves programming an industrial robot to do a specific task. It is an industrial problem solving competition. It would emulate what a technician would do on a factory floor to program a pre-existing robot to perform a specific manufacturing task.
SkillsUSA competition pit teams of students against each other, while solving problems that an industrial worker would encounter on a daily basis.
FRC competitions pit students against a problem, not against other students. That is the founders intent. FRC requires students to learn how to create and innovate solutions for which there is no standard response.
There is a lot of room for discussion and debate, but roughly that is the answer. There is plenty of room for both activities especially since they are very different and both are needed.
You also mention SkillsUSA Mobile Robotics. If you dig around on the internet there is something that fits this description and it is clearly based on VEX products. The SkillsUSA website does an extremely poor job of explaining SkillsUSA Mobile Robotics. I have no idea if they have a separate competition and use the products, or it is just simply a VEX competition with a SkillsUSA wrapper.
note: My comments are not based on my personal experience in SkillsUSA…
I am the National Technical Chair for the SkillsUSA Mobile Robotics Competition. Our committee designs the contest each year and it is released in early October.
Mobile Robotics is a 2 student team contest that compete alone on the field (no contact with other robots). There is a 60 second autonomous period followed by a 60 second operator controlled period. The team is judged on how well they perform during the given challenge, their engineering notebook and a oral presentation. The robot must also built from a fixed kit of parts detailed in the Mobile Robotics rules in the link below.
Teams must be registered with their state Skills USA chapter in order to compete at the state contest. The state contests are typically in March time frame, but this varies by state. The winner represents their state at the national contest in June in Kansas City. This contest is open to both secondary and post secondary schools.
Here is link to last year’s rules.
http://intelitekdownloads.com/skills/skills_mobile_robotics/index.htm
The Vex Robotics Competition (VRC) is a completely different competition. Teams are typically 2-5 students, but there is no stated limit like Mobile Robotics. The game is played in a head to head 2 vs. 2 format on a 12x12 field with alliances similar to FRC. The matches are 15 seconds of autonomous followed by 1:45 seconds of operator control. The robot can be built from any VEX legal part. Please review the contest rules in the link below.
Teams can go to variety of VRC competitions in their area. There is no limit on the number of competitions a team can attend. There are regional, national and worldwide competitions that teams can qualify for if they perform well at local events. VRC also has a middle school division.
Here is a link to this year’s VRC game
http://www.vexforum.com/wiki/index.php/Sack_Attack
I am active in both competitions and I live in NH, so PM me and I will get you connected with the right people.
Good Luck this year!
Thanks for the information Dan. Very informative.
Q. If the team is affiliated with a school is it supposed to be in-curricular or extra-curricular ? Or either.
Q. Can a school submit multiple teams, or just one team ?
Ed
Canadians reading this thread might be interested in checking out the Skills Canada robotics competition challenge from last year: http://skillscompetencescanada.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2012_National-Robotics-Scope_EN_12Jan121.pdf
One difference you will see in VEX/FTC/FRC relative to the Skills competitions is greater international standardization, and a larger user base resulting in greater on-line support.
That said, I’ve seen students do both FRC and SkillsCanada in the same year and enjoy both competitions. Can’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy SkillsUSA, too.
Jason
It can be either. Some students take a robotics elective first semester, but train and compete second the semester with their teacher outside of class.
It depends on the specfic state SkillsUSA rules. Some states allow more that one team from a school to participate in state contests, especially larger states that have district qualifiers before the final state event. The winner of the state event moves on the the national contest.
Note - It is important to check with you State SkillsUSA director first. This will also confirm whether or not a Mobile Robotics event is planned in your state. If you are interested in hosting an state event, please contact me and I will try to navigate you through the process.
Hope this helps!