Competitions
Robotics competitions are where learning meets action — they challenge us, teach us, and inspire innovation. On this page, you’ll find everything you need to understand how we compete: the schedule of upcoming events, how teams are organized and what roles members take, plus how to join and prepare. Whether you’re curious about local qualifiers, aiming for the BC Provincial Championship, or dreaming of VEX Worlds, we’ve mapped out the timeline, shared our stories, and listed concrete steps so you can jump in.
Competition Structure
Local Qualifiers
BC Provincial Championship
VEX World Championship
Teams start at local VEX tournaments hosted by schools or private groups. Winning teams and those earning key judged awards qualify for the BC Provincial Championship, and top performers from there move on to represent BC at VEX Worlds.
Timeline
Team Structure
Team Roles
Typical team size: 3–4 students
Note: Roles may overlap depending on team size and skill.
Builder
Constructs and assembles the robot hardware.
Programmer
Codes autonomous and driver control
Driver
Controls the robot during matches.
Notebook Manager
Maintains the Engineering Notebook forthe design process, testing logs, and documentation (important for judged awards).
Highlight Moments
Competition Snippets
Robot Skills
In the V5 Competition, skills events exist as a separate category from regular tournament. The events consist of driver control and autonomous programming.
Rules
- 60 seconds
- Goal to score as many points as possible
- No opponent robots are on the field
- 3 attempts total for driver and programming
The teams are then ranked based on the combination of their best attempt at driver and programming skills.
All competitions will provide one qualifying spot through ranking first in the skills event.
Signiture Events
This picture was taken before the start of a match during our teams time at the signiture event mecha mayhem. Signiture events are unlike typical regional events, offering direct qualifying spots to worlds. These events are assesible to all teams over the world, typically much more competitive than regional and even provincial level tournaments. These events are most worth for building connections with differents teams, leading to the exchange of ideas and innovations to improve one's chance at regional events.
Alliance Selection
A look at what alliance selection would look like. After qualifying matches are over, teams will be seeded based on their performance. Then, the teams will select their desired partner teams for the elimination rounds that follows.
Rules
- Teams of higher seeds pick first, follwoing the order of 1 seed, second seed and so on...
- Teams picked have the option to "respectfully decline", however, the team that declines will no longer be able to be picked by a team that is higher seed then them
In this particular picture, the top 16 seeds are standing near the field, whereas the lower seeds sit on the benches to wait their turn.
Pit Area
During tournaments, teams will be assigned individual areas to store equipment. Some tournaments will last multiple days, such as signiture events or worlds, and pits are much larger, like shown in the picture. Pits are where other teams will choose to look if they want to find you, such as when they are arranging alliances, discussing match strategies or simply to scout your robot.
In the picture, we are tightening screws during down time to ensure that nothing has came loose due to physical contact with other robots during matches.
Typical Tournament Timeline
Time | Activity | Ongoing Details | Team Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
7:30 AM – 8:00 AM | Arrival | Practice fields likely open | Unpack equipment at pit, run autonomous and tune(field likely different) |
8:00 AM – 9:00 AM | Check-in | Inspection opens | Pass inspection as early as possible, make modifications if required |
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM | Competition Begins | Judging Begins, Skills events begins | Sign up for judging early, attempt as much skills runs as possible |
12:00 PM – 12:45 PM | Lunch break, skills events closes, inspection closes | Practice field likely still open | Emergency repairs/robot maintenence, attempt practice runs |
12:45 PM – 5:00 PM | Qualification Matches | Ranking leaderboard updated after each match. | Talk to alliance before matches begin, scout out opponents if time allows |
~5:00 | Alliance Selection | Top-ranked teams select alliances for elimination rounds (if event uses alliances). Team announcements and match scheduling for eliminations. | Talk to desirable teams for alliance selection, have both top choices as well as safety picks |
~5:30 - 7:00 PM | Elimination Matches / Finals / Awards | Match schedule shown on screen | Pack up when event ends, keep an eye on award ceremony. |