VEX® Game Design Animation Challenge

Create an animated video that shows and explains a new VEX Robotics Competition game.

Prizes

1st: 2015 VRC Game Design Animation Award, $750 vexrobotics.com gift certificate and automatic team qualification for the 2015 VRC World Championship if the entrant is part of a registered VRC or VEX U team
2nd: $500 vexrobotics.com gift certificate
3rd: $250 vexrobotics.com gift certificate

Requirements

Overview

Create an animated video that shows and explains a new VEX Robotics Competition game.

Eligibility

This contest is open to students anywhere in the world currently registered in an education institution at the middle school, high school or college/university level, or to home school students younger than college/university level.

Requirements

These are the minimum requirements for this challenge. The “Evaluation” section below will provide additional guidance on how your project will be judged. Failure to fulfill any of these requirements may result in your entry being disqualified from advancing to Finalist or Winner status.

The game must incorporate at least one of the challenge objects described below, and the challenge object(s) used must be significantly involved in the scoring of the game.
A YouTube video showing the game that is No more than 3:00 minutes long with up to an extra 15 seconds at the end (not the beginning) for credits
Designs submitted in previous Online Challenges are not eligible for submission this year.

Judging

Judges will select ten finalists from the submitted entries, and will take community voting results into account in making their choices. The finalist submissions will then be judged by additional selected professionals whose scores will be combined with the preliminary-round judges’ scores to determine the winner of the VRC Game Design Animation Challenge.

Evaluation and Additional Information

The 2015 Challenge Objects are part of the challenge to introduce a real-world limitation. Like any other engineering problem there are constraints and in this contest the Challenge Object is one of your constraints:

Challenge Object 1: Regular tetrahedron. The regular tetrahedron is a Platonic solid with four equilateral triangle faces. For the purposes of this game, your tetrahedron(s) may be solid, wireframe, or any combination of solid faces and wireframe sides. It may be any size you want, and you may use tetrahedrons of different sizes. A solid tetrahedron and a wireframe tetrahedron:

Challenge Object 2: The bowl. For the purposes of this challenge a bowl is a section of sphere defined by slicing through a sphere with a plane. The bowl must be less than 50% of the sphere from which it is cut. In other words, the bowl is a spherical section that is equal to or smaller than a hemisphere. The bowl must be hollow (think of a basketball cut in half). You may use one or more bowls of one or more different sizes. The wall thickness can be no more than ¼” (6mm).

Challenge Object 3: Construction tetrapod. “Tetrapod” can mean a vertebrate animal with four limbs, but it is also a term used in construction for a structure used to control erosion. See the pictures below. Your tetrapods consist of four arms radiating from a central point, each at about 109° to the others, so that regardless of its position on a surface, three arms form a supporting tripod and the fourth is vertical. This same shape is also called a “caltrop” when used in warfare and defense. Your tetrapod can be of any thickness or size, as long as it has four “arms” distributed evenly around a central point.

Instructions for your video:

Start with an title screen and introduction that states the name of the game
Show and explain the scoring objects and field objects (goals, ramps, barriers, obstacles, etc.) in the game
Explain how the challenge objects are used
Demonstrate the game being played, explaining and/or showing important game dynamics, rules and penalties
Show how a demo match would be scored and show who would win
The 15-second credits at the end must include the VEX team number (if any), and the software used to create and edit the video (if any). You may include other information if you would like.
Any animation method may be used, including computer-generated images (CGI), claymation, stop motion or hand-crafted art. Traditionally this is a CGI contest, but we are always interested in other creative approaches. You may NOT use video of live action – remember this is an animation contest!
The video should well-produced and exhibit good editing, animation techniques, and use of music and narration.
Robots featured in the animations should be constructed from VEX parts, follow the laws of physics and should be functional in the real world.
The game should be playable, interesting, and incorporate the challenge object(s) in a creative, interesting way. It is a good game.

Tips for this challenge (these are suggestions, and are not part of the rules):

Remember – this both a game design AND an animation contest. The quality of your game and your animation are both evaluated by judges.
This should be a “real” VRC game. Remember that the game should be affordable, easily constructed by volunteers, not violate any laws of physics, have understandable rules and be interesting for participants.
Take time to make your animation look professional. In the past we have had some great games that suffered from being presented poorly.
Make sure your sound quality is good. Entries with hard-to-understand narration and muddy music score poorly.

Deadline Information

Current time:
Mon, Sep 9, 2024 3:32 AM CDT

Opens:

Tue, Sep 16, 2014 5:00 PM CDT

Closes:

Tue, Jan 13, 2015 4:00 PM CST

Voting Ends:

Sun, Feb 15, 2015 4:00 PM CST

Entries

All Entries
View Finalists
View Winners