Competition Update: Track Our Progress

VEX does this really cool thing where you can track matches in real time on their site! Each competition has its own Robot Events Page, so here's the one for the Cleveland State Competition that is taking place right now: CLICK HERE

Qualification Rounds are about to begin! All five team have passed inspection. In case you are unaware of how competitions work, here's a rundown:

Every team is required to pass an inspection that usually consists of a check to make sure your robot meets the 18"x18"x18" maximum size requirement, a check on your VEXnet (autonomous and driver control), and making sure all your parts are legal and within regulations.

After inspection, the qualification rounds will commence. These are matches in which your alliance and your opponents are randomly generated by a computer, and each team usually has between four and six of these matches. Qualification matches decided the rankings for Alliance Selection. Scores are calculated by win-draw-lose, and while wins are the highest scoring points, there are also skill-points, or SPs, that are calculated based on how you match up against your opponent. For instance, if you lose 6-37, you were clearly not on the same level as your opponent, and you still lose, but you get higher skill points than a match that you lost 35-37.

After Qualification Matches, the top teams get 'first dibs' on who they want to align with, and they take turns (based upon the winner's hierarchy) choosing their alliances. Each alliance is usually either two or three teams, depending on the size of the competition. At this point, teams not chosen for alliances are eliminated from the competition. Game Over.

These teams that are selected as Alliances move on to the Finals. Finals matches are won by winning 2 out of 3 games in a standard bracket face-off. Winner moves on to the next bracket until the final two alliances meet each other in a showdown. Same deal, two out of three games for the win, and the winner is the Tournament Champion.

Usually, at local tournaments (at least in Ohio), the winning alliance of the tournament is awarded with qualification for State Competition. Other awards that may qualify a team for States vary from tournament to tournament, but usually are one or both of the Excellence Award and the Design award.

The Excellence Award is awarded based upon robot performance, interview quality, design and engineering log. The Design Award is awarded based upon the overall design process employed during the course of the season, and is mainly judged and awarded by the engineering log. ​ ~ Erica Kraus               Club Secretary