Well, I don’t have to write a lot about getting registered. The good people at IFI robotics, organizers of the VEX Robotics Competition (VRC, of course, as we need to keep our TLA’s up) have written a good guide to registering for VRC. The short answer is that registration is $75 for the first team from a school and $25 for each team after that. The five teams at DT, for instance, cost just $175. The real cost comes in the equipment. You can count on spending close to $1000 per team to build a competitive robot, but that equipment should be reusable from year to year. That is why we can afford to have five teams… we already have five sets of equipment. (I’ll write more later on what I would recommend to buy, and where to get it.)
Their guide should tell you where to PAY, and if you look here, you should find a long list of places to PLAY. You will find the list towards the bottom of the page, and it goes on for several pages. The list is (as I write this) incomplete as there will be more events added. Today, for instance, I signed up three teams from our school for the Vancouver Island tournament and all five up for the Vancouver tournament, but those of us organizing the Vancouver tournament have yet to finalize dates and locations (I know it says Dec. 6, but with Vancouver Island running the following weekend, it would make sense for one of us to change). Keep an eye on robotevents.com, and be sure I’ll post more here about the scheduling issues as they are resolved.
As far as other Canadian events go, I see several tournaments listed in Ontario, as well as Nova Scotia and Alberta. Hopefully there will be at least one in Washington State, but we’ll be happy to host the American teams up here if there isn’t.
UPDATE: Sept. 24/08
BC VEX Tournament Schedule (less tentative than before):
December 6, West Vancouver Secondary School
January 20, Courtenay/Comox area, Vancouver Island
Febrary 20, Gladstone Secondary School, Vancouver
Building Robots at School 
Leave a comment