What is VEX EDR?

VEX EDR, the competition we are participating in, is the largest robotics competition in the world (holding an official Guinness World Record). It involves designing, building and programming advanced robots to perform set tasks and then competing in tournaments against, and in alliance, other teams. The championships are based around a game played on a 12’x12’ foam field; this season’s game is called Turning Point and requires robots to flip caps and shoot plastic balls at targets. The aim of the VEX EDR competition is to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) through tasking teams of students, such as us, with games and challenges. Regional tournaments are held from the start of the season and teams compete to progress to national levels, and ultimately to the VEX Robotics World Championship, which we are aiming for. These competitions put us in real-life situations, similar to what we may encounter in our professional careers, such as working as a team against tight deadlines, solving unexpected problems as they crop up (potentially in competitions) and how to stay on top of the game. It gives us an in-depth experience in robotic designing, programming and engineering. These help us gain valuable life-long skills in teamwork, leadership, communications and more. The judges also look for innovative ways in which we design and build international level robots.Our robots are built from parts bought from VEX which consist of metal structural pieces and hardware including various sensors, motors and a robot brain, on which we run our programs. This year we have to build a robot which can shoot balls at coloured flags to toggle them to our alliance’s colour and flip caps to our alliance’s colour. In a match two teams are paired together to form an alliance to compete against another alliance. For the first 15 seconds of the match drivers are not allowed to control their robots and it must act autonomously, based upon programs written and thoroughly refined, to score as many points as possible. The next minute and 45 seconds are when the drivers’ skills are tested along with the robot’s ability, in a driving period. Each team is also tested individually in a skills match, in which they must score as many points in the set two minutes; 15 seconds for autonomous and the rest for driving. Here is a picture of the field on which we play the game, it also has the flags, balls and caps set up:

The challenge is to build a reliable robot which can efficiently carry out the tasks set. It should be able to shoot balls at the 2 highest flags on each post (as the lowest one can by hit by the robot) and flip caps faster than the opposing alliance. At the end of the match the alliance with the most points wins the match and progresses in the tournament.