VEX Robotics Competition
The VEX Robotics Competition is a robotics-based competition from elementary through university students. It is a subset of VEX Robotics, and is the largest robotics competition in the world, having achieved this award in 2016.[1] There are three different divisions: VEX IQ, VEX EDR, and VEX U. VEX IQ is for elementary and middle school students only. VEX EDR is for middle and high school students, and VEX U is for university students. In the competition, students are given a yearly challenge, and must design, build, program, and drive a robot to complete the challenge as best as they can.
Divisions/Rules
VEX IQ
VEX IQ is for elementary and middle school students, a plastic robot set is used along with a visual software for robot programming. Teams are paired up into alliances to aid each other in order to try and achieve the highest score possible.
VEX EDR
VEX EDR is for middle school to college students with three different divisions: middle school, high school, and college. In this division, aluminum and steel are used instead of plastic for the robots. Additionally, while the visual code editor is still available, most students take advantage of VEX's RobotC for their programming.
Rules
Middle and high school students have the same game and rules. The most general and basic rules for VEX EDR are as follows, but each year may have exceptions.[2]
- Each robot is paired up with one other, and they compete against two other robots. Team colors are red and blue.
- No robot may exceed the dimensions of an 18" cube, until the match has begun.
- At the start of the match is a 15-second autonomous period, where all four robots navigate the field entirely by themselves.
- After the autonomous period is the driver control period, which is 1:45 seconds of manual control of the robot through a handheld controller.
VEX U
The VEX U level competition is for college and university students. The rules are nearly identical for this division as for the EDR division, but VEX U teams are allowed to take advantage of more customization and greater flexibility than other levels. Also, their robot creation is limited by the need to find effective costs and a restricted development environment in order to model a real-world situation. In addition, Vex U teams need to create two different complementary robots, one big and one small, and program them to work together to defeat opponent teams.[3]