Hello! Welcome back to IntroVex, your robotics guide to VEXcellence.
This is the second episode of the "What's the difference? VEX IQ vs VEX V5" series, and we will discuss the differences in competition and match design. If you are willing to understand both competitions or if you are just about to transition from IQ to V5, this episode might be worth watching!
Match Design
The first major difference is how teams partake in one match. In VEX IQ, two teams will work together and try to score the highest score they can. Basically, VEX IQ matches are more cooperative, making communications on strategy beforehand super important.
Each match of VEX IQ has a time length of 1 minute. There will be a required driver switch during the 25-second and 35-second period, which simply means the controller should be given to another driver on your team.
On the other hand, VEX V5 requires four teams to participate in a single match. Two teams form an alliance, each naming the blue and red alliance, and the two teams have to battle to see which side scores higher at the end of the match. Both cooperation and competition are present, making the ability to think of a counter strategy immediately during a match crucial, as it is impossible to predict every step before the match.
Another point about VEX V5 communication is the addition of autonomous routes. Since there is a 15-second autonomous period at the start of a match, discussions about autonomous distribution are required. The total match time is 2 minutes, with 15 seconds of autonomous and 1 minute and 45 seconds of driving, no driver switch required.
Overall, match communication may be more complicated for VEX V5 competitions, but VEX IQ still requires active thinking and discussion about strategies with alliance teams.
Qualification Rankings
Next, we will compare the differences of how qualification rankings are evaluated based on the result of each of your matches.
For VEX IQ, it is quite straightforward. The qualification ranking will be filtered from high to low, based on your average qualification match score, with one lowest-scored match deleted every 4 matches.
For example, if I competed 6 qualification matches in total with the following scores: 100/50/30/80/90/70, the lowest match score of 30 will be deleted, making the score average of 78. The teams with a higher average score than 78 will be in a higher ranking, vice versa. If there are ties between two teams in the rankings, it will be broken through comparison between the new average score with another lowest score deleted, and so on.
For VEX V5, it is a bit more complicated. There are three values evaluated after the match ends, which are Win Points (WP), Autonomous Points (AP), and Strength of Schedule Points (SP).
Win point is the score that is first compared in rankings. If your alliance won the match, both teams will get 2 win points, and the losing alliance gets 0 win points. You will get 1 win point if the match is tied, or if you finished the tasks required for autonomous win point during the 15 seconds of autonomous.
For example, a team can get the highest win point of 3 points after each match if they won and also finished the autonomous tasks. A team can also still secure a point from autonomous even if they lost. So, autonomous win point is super important. Normally, the counts of points are used, but the average win point will be used during league competitions where not all teams played the same number of matches.
Autonomous Point will be awarded to the winning alliance of the autonomous period (the one who scored higher during the first 15 seconds). Each season has a different score awarded. For example, the over-under season awards 8 points to winners and 4 for each team when tied. While the High Stakes this year awards 6 for winners and 3 for tied situations. This will be compared if two teams had win points tied.
Strength of Schedule Points is the score of the losing alliance in a qualification match. This is the third basis for ranking if the above two tied within teams. For example, if a match ended with 60 to 30 with the blue alliance winning, all four teams will receive the SP of 30 points.
Overall, V5 has a much more complicated ranking system. Even though it may be difficult to understand, it is important to at least have a brief understanding of them to know what to prioritize in a competition.
Final Matches
Next, let's talk about alliance selection! There is actually a big difference between how the final alliances are decided between VEX IQ and VEX V5, and is one of the biggest "cultural shock" I experienced in my first year V5.
For VEX IQ, the final alliance is decided by the qualification ranking. The first and second ranked Teams form an Alliance, and go on until no more alliance can be formed. This means if the total participating teams has an odd number, there will be one ineligible team to partake in the finals. Simply saying, you cannot choose your alliance in VEX IQ, and your qualification ranking is crucial to your survival in final matches.
If the first place is tied, a tiebreaker round is required. When I was in the Pitching-In VEX IQ worlds, we and another alliance tied with full score, and we had to play again to enter the dome. Luckily we played consistently as how we practiced and moved on.
For VEX V5, even though the qualification ranking also plays a role, teams got to choose their alliance, making the ranking not as decisive. The alliance selection starts from the first ranked team selecting their alliance, the selected team can either accept or reject the offer. Once a team rejected a selection, they can only wait until their time to choose another team and cannot be chosen again. Simply saying, a team can only be invited once to an alliance.
There is not an unlimited amount of final matches, only 16 alliances can be formed at most for VEX V5, and the final match schedule will differ based on the number of alliances formed. For example, if only 12 alliances were formed, the first four alliances formed will advance to the quarter finals immediately.
Also, for all elimination matches, only one match will be played to determine the advancing alliance. However, for the last game of all final matches, where it determines the first and second place, will have to play a "Best of 3" game if the event is world qualifying or multidivisional. For smaller non-qualifying events, still only one match will be played for the finals' final match.
Skills Challenge
There are no major differences in skills challenge, both VEX IQ and VEX V5 have a skills match time of 1 minute, and each team gets 3 attempts on both driving skills and autonomous skills.
That's about all of the differences between the competition of VEX IQ and V5. If you have any questions about other aspects of the competition, feel free to comment and submit what you would like to know more about!!
This is IntroVex, your robotics guide to VEXcellence, see you next time!!
