In addition to the regular VRC matches, many tournaments offer Skills Challenges. Skills challenges are a field competition that is run in conjunction to the main competition. However, unlike standard matches, you are primarily competing against yourself.
Skills are divided into two section: Driver Skills and Autonomous Skills. For each section, teams are given one minute to themselves on the field. During this one minute, they try and score as many points as they can based on the type of game play (directly controlling through joysticks or pre-programmed code). Depending on the tournament/competition/scrimmage, teams who choose to compete in skills can have anywhere from three to limitless attempts at each type of skills from the time they open to when they close.
Though Skills may seem primarily inconsequential during regular tournament play, Skills can provide teams with additional opportunities, such as higher chances at making it past qualifications, qualifying for additional awards, chances to practice with a strict time environment, or even a chance to explore coding more functions for your robot. Since robots compete against themselves, teams get the chance to explore the specific strengths of their individual robot, and use that experience to modify their design and strategy to better solve the objective(s) of the challenge.
For more on VRC’s Skills Challenge, check out the game manual on their page here.
To see how our teams have done with Skills in the past, check out the World Skills Ranking by season, or visit our Robot Events Pages: