engineering

VEX Robotics

VEX Robotics is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand VEX Robotics rather than just read about it. In short: VEX Robotics is a robotics program for elementary through university students, and a subset of Innovation First International. The VEX Robotics competitions and programs were overseen by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (RECF) until May 2026, when VEX split from the foundation and created the Global Robotics & Science Foundation (GRSF) to oversee competition.

Key takeaways

VEX Robotics belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect VEX Robotics to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of VEX Robotics from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

VEX Robotics is a robotics program for elementary through university students, and a subset of Innovation First International. The VEX Robotics competitions and programs were overseen by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (RECF) until May 2026, when VEX split from the foundation and created the Global Robotics & Science Foundation (GRSF) to oversee competition. VEX Robotics Competition was named the largest robotics competition in the world by Guinness World Records. There are four leagues of VEX Robotics competitions designed for different age groups and skill levels. The VEX V5 Robotics Competition (V5RC), the largest, is targeted toward middle and high school students. The VEX IQ Robotics Competition (VIQRC) is targeted toward elementary and middle school students. The VEX AI Robotics Competition is a 'spinoff' for high school and college-level students. The competition features no driver control periods, hence the name 'VEX AI'. VEX U is a robotics competition for university students. The game is similar to V5RC, but traditionally features a unique ruleset with more relaxed rules on the construction of their robots, and teams consisting of two robots. In each of the four competitions, the VEX Robotics Game Design Committee creates a new challenge annually. Students must then design, build, program, and drive a robot to complete the challenge as best they can within the constraints. After competing in local and regional tournaments, qualifying teams are invited to attend the VEX Robotics World Championship. The description and rules for the season's competition are released during the world championship of the previous season. From 2021 to 2025, the VEX Robotics World Championship was held in Dallas, Texas each year in mid-April or mid-May, depending on which league the teams are competing in. St. Louis, Missouri hosted the event in 2026 and is scheduled to hold the RECF STEM World Championship in 2027. VEX Robotics and the GRSF have not confirmed which city will host the event for the 2027 VEX Robotics World Championship.

VEX V5

VEX V5 is a STEM learning system designed by VEX Robotics and the REC Foundation to help middle and high school students develop problem-solving and computational thinking skills. It was introduced at the VEX Robotics World Championship in April 2019 as a replacement for a previous system called VEX EDR (VEX Cortex). The program utilizes the VEX V5 Construction and Control System as a standardized hardware, firmware, and software compatibility platform. Robotics teams and clubs can use the VEX V5 system to build robots to compete in the annual VEX V5 Robotics Competition.

Construction and Control System The VEX V5 Construction and Control System is a metal-based robotics platform with machinable, bolt-together pieces that can be used to construct custom robotic mechanisms. The robot is controlled by a programmable processor known as the VEX V5 Brain. The Brain is equipped with a color LCD touchscreen, 21 hardware ports, an SD card port, a battery port, 8 legacy sensor ports, and a micro-USB programming port. Usage with a VEX V5 Radio enables wireless driving and wireless programming of the brain via the VEX V5 Controller. The controller allows wireless user input to the robot brain, and two controllers can be daisy-chained if necessary. Each controller has two hardware ports, a micro-USB port, two 2-axis joysticks, a monochrome LCD, and twelve buttons. The controller's LCD can be written wirelessly from the robot, providing users with configurable feedback from the robot brain. The VEX V5 Motors connect to the brain via the hardware ports and are equipped with an internal optical shaft encoder to provide feedback on the rotational status of the motor. The motor's speed is programmable but may also be altered by exchanging the internal gear cartridge with one of three cartridges of different gear ratios. The three cartridges are 100 rpm, 200 rpm, and 600 rpm.

VEXcode V5

VEXcode V5 is a Scratch-based coding environment designed by VEX Robotics for programming VEX Robotics hardware, such as the VEX V5 Brain. The block-style interface makes programming simple for elementary through high-school students. VEXcode is consistent across VEX 123, GO, IQ, and V5 and can be used to program the devices from each. VEXcode allows the block programs to be viewed as equivalent C++ or programs to help more advanced students transition from blocks to text. This also allows easy interconversion between text-based and block-based programming. VEXcode also lets students code in C++, which gives the opportunity to learn basic C++, but to collect data from sensors or to move the drivetrain, VEX uses a header file.

PROS PROS is a C/C++ programming environment for VEX V5 hardware maintained by students of Purdue University through Purdue ACM SIGBots. It provides a more bare-bones environment for more knowledgeable students that allows for an industry-applicable experience. It has a more robust API that allows for more precise control of the hardware for competition-level uses in V5RC/VEX U. It is based on FreeRTOS.

VEX V5 Robotics Competition

VEX V5 Robotics Competition (V5RC) (formerly the VEX Robotics Competition, VRC, and VEX EDR) is a robotics competition for registered middle and high school teams that utilize the VEX V5 Construction and Control System. Previously under the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, the competition is now managed by the Global Robotics & Science Foundation. In this competition, teams design, cad, build, and program robots to compete in tournaments. At tournaments, teams participate in qualifying matches where two randomly chosen alliances of two teams each compete for the highest team ranking. Before the Elimination Rounds, the top-ranking teams choose their permanent alliance partners, starting with the highest-ranked team, and continuing until the alliance capacity for the tournament is reached. The new alliances then compete in an elimination bracket, and the tournament champions, alongside other award winners, qualify for their regional culminating event. . The current challenge is VEX V5 Robotics Competition: Override.

General rules Middle and high school students have the same game and rules. The most general and basic rules for the VEX V5 Robotics Competition are as follows, but each year may have exceptions and/or additional constraints.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with VEX Robotics

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what VEX Robotics claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to VEX Robotics before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about VEX Robotics ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of VEX Robotics

In research: VEX Robotics appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses VEX Robotics in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: VEX Robotics is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Robotics, Robotics competitions, Robotics in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for VEX Robotics outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study VEX Robotics in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what VEX Robotics means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain VEX Robotics out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is VEX Robotics in simple terms?

Why does VEX Robotics matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study VEX Robotics?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on VEX Robotics.