Introducing 'In the Zone', the new VEX Competition game
It has been quite a weekend in the world of VEX Robotics. The World Championships have been taking place in Kentucky and there have been some excellent performances from the teams representing the UK.
Special recognition has to go to team 3117, Shark Robotics from Stanborough School in Hertfordshire. They were undefeated up until their final qualification match but, after winning 8 out of 9 matches, they became a seeded team which made them an Alliance Captain. In the knockout rounds they led their team into the Semi-Finals, the furthest a UK team has ever reached at VEX Worlds.
Then on Saturday night came the reveal of the 2017/18 VEX Robotics Competition game – In the Zone. We spoke to Chris Calver, our resident VEX expert, for his thoughts on the new game.
"It looks like a cracker! ‘In The Zone’ has a hint of ‘Skyrise’ and dash of ‘Round Up’ (for those that remember that far back!). The first thing you notice is we are back to an open field. This means that unlike ‘Starstruck’ where the two Alliances were kept apart by the fence that divided the field, all four robots for ‘In The Zone’ are working in the same space. I have to say, I am a massive fan of the open field style games and whilst they are not always the easiest to referee, they do make for some seriously exciting games.”
“The aim of the game is simple", Chris says. "Collect the cones and stack them either on the high goal that is fixed to the floor or in one of the low, mobile goals. These movable goals can then be placed into the various scoring zones for more points. There are also bonuses for the team with the highest stack and for parking your robots on the coloured tiles at the end of the match ... there are so many ways to score. There are also a lot of objects – 80 Cones, 8 movable goals and 2 fixed goals. The cones themselves are an interesting object – they have plenty of ways to grasp them and they are not particularly heavy, less than half the weight of a Star from ‘Starstruck’.”
"There are a few interesting rules - we are back to 10 points for the Autonomous Bonus so great news for the programmers out there. Robots can only "possess" one cone at a time so you'll need to head back and forth to the goals a lot. However, the movable goals can be moved no matter how many Cones they have stacked on them. Teams can not descore their oppositions stacks, so once these cones are scored, they are scored. Robot expansion is also an interesting one this year."
"The starting dimensions are the same ones we all know and love, the now legendary 18" cube. For 'In The Zone', whilst robots can expand infinitely upwards (Z axis), they can only expand to 48" in the X and Y axis which is approximately 1/3 of the field width. This means no wallbots and no long-leaded tetherbots either. There are so many strengths a robot needs but as with every year, the teams designs will almost certainly be far more creative than my initial thoughts!"
We know that you’ll be keen to get started with building your robots for the new game, so we are very excited that the new ‘In the Zone’ field and game elements are available to pre-order from Rapid below.