What is VEX IQ?

VEX IQ, 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 4ft by 8ft field; this season’s game is called Next Level and requires robots to stack Hubs and hang from a structure on the middle of the field. The aim of the VEX IQ 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 plastic 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 Stack Hubs at specific zones to stack the most hubs quickly and then hang from the structure in the middle of the field. Each team will have 60 seconds to stack as many hubs as possible, and then make their way to the hanging structure in the middle of the field to hang from it and gain bonus points. Each team is also tested individually in a skills match, in which they must score as many points in the set one minute; for autonomous and another one minute for driving. Here is a picture of the field on which we play the game, it has the hubs and the rest of the field set up.

Here is the field set up.