VEX Robotics Competition: How It Works and How to Win

The VEX Robotics Competition, now officially the VEX V5 Robotics Competition (V5RC), is a team robotics contest for grades 6 to 12. The 2026-27 game is called Override.

You win matches with a reliable robot and a practiced driver, and you win judged awards with your engineering notebook and team interview. If you'd rather enter a research project than a robot, see our list of science fairs and competitions for high school students.

Facts checked October 2026. For 2026-27, VEX Robotics and the REC Foundation run separate competitions. Everything below covers VEX's V5RC season, the one that leads to the VEX Robotics World Championship.

V5RC 2026-27 at a glance

• Game: Override, played on a 12-by-12-foot field by two alliances of two teams each (Override game manual)
• Who can enter: students in grades 6 to 12; VEX counts more than 14,000 V5RC teams in 53 countries (VEX competitions page)
• Format: qualification and elimination matches at each event, separate 60-second Robot Skills runs and judged awards based on interviews and notebooks
• Cost: entry fees set by each event (one November 2026 tournament charges $85), plus robot parts and travel
• Where to register: VEX Events, which VEX calls the exclusive pathway to the 2027 World Championship
• Team fee: not posted on VEX's public pages as of October 2026
• Manual version: VEX's online Override manual showed version 0.2, dated June 4, 2026, as of October 29
• Scheduled rule updates: December 3, 2026, January 28, 2027 and March 25, 2027 (VEX's manual schedule)
• World Championship: held each April; VEX hadn't posted 2027 dates or a location as of October 2026

What is the VEX Robotics Competition?

V5RC is a robotics contest from VEX Robotics, the company that makes the parts. Teams of students design, build and code a robot for a new game each season, then play it at local tournaments. The best teams advance through Regional Championships and Signature Events to the World Championship.

In Override, robots place Pins and Cups in Goals and set Toggles to their alliance's color. When the match ends, the alliance with more robots in the Midfield owns the yellow Pins placed there. Every robot must fit inside an 18-inch cube at the start of a match, under rule SG1.

Younger students play the VEX IQ Robotics Competition (VIQRC), for grades 4 to 8. Its 2026-27 game, Level Up, uses 60-second matches in which two robots work together to score.

What changed for the 2026-27 season?

VEX Robotics and the REC Foundation now run separate competitions. VEX's competition pathway page calls VEX Events the only authorized platform for VEX Robotics competitions and the exclusive path to the 2027 World Championship. The REC Foundation runs its own contest, RECF Robotics, and says its events won't qualify teams for that championship.

The REC Foundation announced a more independent approach on May 10, 2026. RobotEvents.com now shows only a notice about the change, with links to both organizations.

If your team registered on RECFEvents.org, you're in RECF's contest, whose events lead to the 2027 RECF STEM World Championship in St. Louis.

How long is a VEX match?

A V5RC match lasts 2 minutes: a 15-second autonomous period, when robots run only on code, then 1 minute 45 seconds of driver control. Robot Skills runs are separate 60-second matches that one team plays alone, either driver-controlled or autonomous, per the 2026-27 game manual.

The alliance ahead when autonomous ends gets the Autonomous Bonus. An alliance that completes a set list of autonomous tasks earns an Autonomous Win Point, which counts toward its ranking.

Each team plays at least six qualification matches per event. Rankings from those matches set the order for alliance selection, and the chosen alliances play the elimination rounds.

Who is VEX a good fit for?

V5RC suits students who like building, coding or driving and can stay with one team from the summer build to spring championships. It works best if your school has a team, a coach and a room to build in. It's a harder fit if your weekends are already full from fall to spring.

If your team would rather build something that flies, see our guide to aerospace competitions for high school students. For contests with no entry fee, see our list of free competitions for high school students.

How do you join or start a VEX team?

Most students join a school or club team that already exists. If your school has none, find an adult coach and register the team on VEX Events to get a team number.

1. Check which contest your team is in. RECF Robotics events use RECFEvents.org and don't lead to VEX Worlds.
2. Find a coach and a build space. Adults can supervise and teach, but rule G2 says adults shouldn't make decisions about your robot's build, design, code or notebook.
3. Register the team. Tournaments such as the Omaha event below require an official VEX Events team number before you can sign up.
4. Get parts. VEX's V5 Competition Starter Kit includes the robot brain, a controller, a battery and four Smart Motors, plus metal for a drivetrain.
5. Pick events early. A November 7, 2026 high school event in Omaha charges $85 per team and had a waitlist by late October.

How do VEX judges choose award winners?

Judged awards, such as the Excellence and Innovate awards, are decided from your team interview, your engineering notebook and what judges see at the event. A team can win only one judged award per event, according to VEX's judge training course.

What goes in the engineering notebook?

The notebook is your team's record of the season: the problem you saw, the ideas you weighed and what happened when you tried them. VEX's notebook training for judges says judges read for that thinking. It lists a mechanism that jammed and a strategy a team dropped as entries worth reading.

• Format: paper or digital, judged on the same criteria; each event picks one format for all teams
• Summaries: up to three (Season, Code and Credit), usually one page each, at the front, per VEX's official judging Q&A; they aren't scored
• Sources: credit where ideas came from and keep every entry in your own words

What happens in the team interview?

Judges come to your pit, and every team must get the chance to be interviewed, per VEX's interview training. They ask how and why you built what you did, and the rubric expects students to explain their own work. If you submit a Season Summary, judges read it before they reach your pit.

For 2026-27, the Innovate Award needs no separate form, per the judging Q&A.

In our Nova Competition Mentorship, you work one-on-one with a mentor on your competition materials and practice presenting to judges.

How do you succeed with your robotics team?

Give every job an owner, get a simple robot driving early and spend more meetings testing than redesigning. Practice autonomous and driving until both work every time.

Who does what on a VEX team?

The 2026-27 manual expects every team to have drive team members, coders, designers and builders, while notebookers and strategists are optional. Each student can belong to only one team per season. On a small team, people cover two roles each.

• Designer: sketches or models mechanisms in CAD before anyone cuts metal
• Builder: assembles and repairs the robot and keeps spare parts organized
• Coder: writes the autonomous routine and maps the driver controls
• Driver: controls the robot in matches and runs driving skills
• Notebooker: makes sure entries get written after every meeting
• Strategist: scouts other teams and plans alliance picks

A season plan, month by month

VEX released Override at the 2026 World Championship, and the season runs until the next one in April. A team that starts in late spring can use the year like this.

• May to June: read the manual, list every way to score and build quick prototypes of two or three ideas
• July to August: build a drivetrain and one scoring mechanism, start the notebook and begin driver practice
• September to October: enter a first tournament, write a basic autonomous routine and record your first skills scores
• November to December: rebuild whatever failed at events and read the December 3 rule update
• January to February: tune autonomous, submit Virtual Skills by February 1 and aim at your Regional Championship
• March to April: read the March 25 update, then compete at your Regional Championship and, if you qualify, at Worlds

If your team has a gap between events, pick a small build from our robotics and drone project ideas.

How do you tune an autonomous routine?

Change one value at a time, such as a turn speed or a drive distance, and run the routine five times after each change. Use sensors, such as motor encoders and an inertial sensor, instead of timed moves, so the robot measures where it is. Start from a spot marked with tape, and log every run in the notebook, including the failures.

Code in VEXcode, VEX's coding software, which offers blocks, Python and C++.

What mistakes do VEX teams make?

Watch for five habits: overbuilding early, keeping the notebook late, skipping skills runs, missing rule updates and using AI without credit. Here is what to do instead.

• Overbuilding early: every extra mechanism is one more thing to fix between matches, so add one mechanism at a time.
• A late notebook: judges read for a record kept during the season. Write a short entry at the end of every meeting.
• Skipping skills runs: they're optional, but they're the only matches where your score doesn't depend on a partner. Run them at every event.
• Missing updates: rules can change on each scheduled update date through March 25, 2027. Assign one person to read each update and tell the team what changed.
• Uncredited AI help: VEX's judge training lists generative AI tools among the sources teams should credit in the notebook.

Frequently asked questions

What does VRC stand for?

VRC stands for VEX Robotics Competition. VEX now calls it V5RC, after the V5 robot system teams build with.

When is VEX Virtual Skills?

For 2026-27, registered VEX IQ and V5 teams can submit VEXcode VR scores from September 3, 2026 to February 1, 2027. The top V5 middle school team and the top V5 high school team each earn a World Championship spot, per VEX's entry guide.

Do you need to know how to code to join a VEX team?

No. You can learn during the season, starting with simple drive commands in blocks. The manual expects every team to have at least one coder, so if nobody wants the job, take it.