Posting an Event on RobotEvents.com

EP Access

REC Foundation events are posted on RobotEvents.com to provide a method for teams to register for events and for EPs to manage their events. To post an event on RobotEvents.com, you must have an account on RobotEvents.com. Contact your Regional Support Manager (RSM) to add EP access to your account. EP access will authorize a new menu, called “Admin,” to appear on the RobotEvents.com home page, which will take you to your EP Dashboard.

Scheduling an Event

Most regions have a shared, online planning document which is used to help coordinate the dates and locations of potential events before they are put into RobotEvents.com. Your RSM can share this planning document with you to reduce event conflicts and ensure there are ample opportunities for teams to compete throughout the season.

Your RSM can also provide you with example events in the region that you can use as a template for your own information as you post your first event.

Posting an Event

Create New Event

1. To post an event, log into your RobotEvents.com as an Event Partner and click on the Admin menu.
2. Click on the blue "Events" button. This will take you to your events screen. You may create a new event or navigate to an existing event from this page.
   
3. Click on “+New Event” in the top right corner of the screen to begin setting up a new event.

Add Event Details

Enter information about your event on the New Event page. If you have any questions about how to configure your event, reach out to your RSM for help.

• Select the program and season for the event you wish to run.
• Select the appropriate event type.
• Indicate whether your event is a scrimmage (a practice-only event).
• Enter a descriptive name for your event. Select an event name that will uniquely identify your event, including the name of your school or other venue. This is how the event will appear in RobotEvents.com. Be creative. Try to sell the event. The three most commonly used designations for an event are “Tournament,” “Challenge,” or “Competition,” (e.g., City VEX V5 Robotics Challenge). Include the program (VEX IQ/ V5, etc.), grade levels (ES only, MS only, HS/MS, etc.), type of event (scrimmage, skills-only, tournament, league), and unusual restrictions (elementary school) in the event name. If you wish to use the word “Championship”, "Signature", or "Showcase" in your event name, please contact the RSM for approval. If you have a sponsor for the event, add the sponsor name to the title (e.g., The Chevron High School V5RC Tournament).
• Enter the total team capacity for your event. Larger events may choose to hold back some spots for new teams that register during the year. The waiting list will allow you to determine the order in which teams ask to be added.
• Select the number of teams per school, club, or organization that will be allowed to register for your event. Some Event Partners want to insure that the largest possible number of schools/clubs attend and set this to a limit value so that no one school has too many teams at the event. If you do not want to limit the number of teams from each school, just leave this blank.  Event Partners and their teams must abide by the max per organization number they set.
• Indicate whether your event has team affiliation restrictions (most should use All for this).
• Select the grade level(s) for your event.
  • Options for VIQRC include Elementary School, Middle School, and All.
  • Options for V5RC include Middle School, High School, and All.
• Indicate whether your event will be In-person, Remote, or Skills-Only.
• Indicate whether your event will offer the Robot Skills Challenge. Change from “No” to “Yes” if you are offering the “Driving Skills” and “Autonomous Coding Skills” Challenges.
• Indicate whether your event will offer In-person judging, remote judging, or no judging.
• Set the start and end dates for your event. For a one-day event, these dates will be the same. For a League, enter the dates for the first session. The dates and venues for other sessions will be entered later.
• Release Date is the date and time when teams can see your event on RobotEvents.com. Unless
  your RSM tells you otherwise, it is best to make this one week later than today’s date to allow time for your event to be reviewed and updated. After your event is approved, you can reset this date earlier, if desired. The event will not be released until the event is approved by your Regional Support Manager, even if it is past the Release Date.
• Registration Opens is the first date and time teams can register for your event. This date
  should be on or after the Release Date and must be at least eight weeks before the Start Date
  for official events.
• Registration Closes is the last date and time teams can register for your event. This date is
  usually one week earlier than the Start Date. Avoid making the date too early as teams
  frequently register in the last 4-8 weeks before an event.
• It is important to remember that the Release Date, Registration Opens, and Registration Closes times are set using Eastern Standard Time. You may wish to set your time according to your location. Note that the default is 12 a.m. Eastern Time. The image below lists common release times for time zones within the United States. You may use this to select the appropriate release time for your event. This will prevent mentors from having to register at odd times of the day or night.
  

Identify your event venue

• The Lookup function will locate a venue and enter the required information in the fields below. You may enter a school name or other venue. Entering a city after the venue name will help find commonly used names such as Washington High School. Using the Lookup function ensures that the Latitude and Longitude are filled in correctly so that your event will appear on the Competition & Teams Map.
• Adjust the Venue Information if needed. If the address is incomplete or unrecognized, the Latitude and Longitude fields will be blank, and your event will not appear on the Competition & Teams Map.
• Click “Save”.

Event Page

• You will be taken to the Event page, which displays the Event Code and TM Code assigned to your new event. Use the Event Dates/Venue window and the Event window on the right side of the page to navigate through the remaining pages where information must be entered for your event. Each item in the Event window will have a green check mark when the required information is entered. Items with a red X require additional information to be entered. These pages are laid out similar to the way teams will see them in robotevents.com. Mandatory fields have asterisks in the field names. The following sections will walk you through the steps for entering information about your event in each page.

Event Dates/Venue Window

This window near the top right-hand corner of your screen displays the event dates for the sessions that you have entered for your event. To enter each additional League session:

• Click on the green + New Date button.
• Enter the Start Date and End Date for the session
• Enter the Venue information for the session as you did for the first session above
• Click on Save

Edit Event Information Page

Use this page to edit the event information that was entered in the New Event Page above (excluding the event dates and venue information).

Documents & Image Uploads Page

• You may upload documents that you would like to make available to teams in this window. This could include Maps, information about sponsors or team or other resources.
• Please note that the Participant Consent Form, Inspection Checklist and “Tips for Teams to Prepare for VEX IQ Robotics Competition Events” will be uploaded automatically and do not need to be added again.
• For information on how to add sponsor logos to Tournament Manager, please visit the KB article on Logos.

Contact Information Page

• Primary Contact Name: The person teams should contact if they have questions about the event.
• Secondary Contact Name: The backup person teams should contact if they have questions about the event.
• Additional Contact Information: Any additional contact information for teams.
• Event Registration Email Body: This required email is sent automatically to a team that registers. Welcome teams and include any important information that you want them to see.

Content Blocks Page

The Content Blocks page allows you to navigate through the event content blocks (tabs). Select each content block by clicking the “+Add” or “Edit” button in the Action column to open the desired content block.

General Info * Tab

Use this tab to enter general information about your event. Include a “welcome” and overall “sales pitch” for your event. This is also a place to put important dates/deadlines, such as digital engineering notebooks must be submitted by ______ date at ______ time, teams that have not passed inspection by ______ time will be dropped from the schedule, etc.

Agenda * Tab

Use this tab to list an agenda for the day (see Sample Agenda below). This will allow teams to arrange transportation and other needs. It will allow families to plan for your event.

Sample Agenda

7:30AM - Team Check-In, Inspection, Pit Setup

9:00AM - Event Meeting/Opening Ceremonies

9:15AM-12:00PM - Qualification Matches, Robot Skills Challenge Matches, Judging

12:00PM-12:45PM - Lunch Break

12:45PM-3:30PM - Qualification Matches, Robot Skills Challenge Matches, Judging

3:30-4:00PM - Alliance Selection (V5RC)

4:00PM - 5:00PM - Eliminations, Finals, Awards

Volunteer * Tab

Use this tab to ask teams and others to step up and help. Be sure to include the name and contact information for the person coordinating your volunteers. Enter information for potential event volunteers here, such as volunteer parking, and meals.

Emergency/Bad Weather Policy * Tab

Use this tab to let teams know your policy if bad weather or some other emergency requires you to cancel an event scheduled for a particular date. In certain areas this may be due to snow, hurricane, severe storms or other acts of nature. The Event Partner should always consider the health and safety of teams when deciding to hold an event when bad weather may become an issue. Be sure to include information on how you will contact teams if an event must be postponed.

Refund Policy * Tab

Use this tab to tell teams your refund policy if a team tells you that they will no longer be attending. Be clear as to whether or not refunds will be given and the deadlines and circumstances under which they may be given. Explain that Event Partners incur set costs. As a best practice, your refund policy should specify what refunds (if any) are given if the Event Partner cancels the event (for emergency, bad weather, or any other reason), and what refunds (if any) are given if a coach registers then cancels.

Travel Info Tab

Use this tab to promote any hotels that are providing discounted room rates for your event. If you do not post hotel recommendations, it is helpful to provide contact information for someone who can help teams locate a suitable place to stay.

Webcast Tab

If you are planning to Webcast your event, enter the URL here. There are also settings in Tournament Manager for broadcasting results (see the Tournament Manager documentation).

User-defined Tabs

Create new tabs by clicking on the green “+ New Tab” button on the Content Blocks page

Pricing Page

• Hide Price?: Some partners want to announce pricing on their own site or other resource. This is an unusual choice, so most events will select “No”.
• Is Free?: Most events will select “No”. If you make the event free by selecting “Yes”, make sure the price is set to zero. Both options are presented for events where the price is not set yet: you can let teams know the event isn’t free, but there is no price yet, by selecting “No”.
• Event Registration Pricing *: Entry fee for teams to participate in your event. Enter “0” if free. Enter the price in the first event field identified as “USD” if you use the online payment system. If your event is completely outside the US (as in Canada, Mexico, Europe, Great Britain, China or New Zealand), enter the price in your currency. You must place some value in all of the currencies marked with an asterisk, but you can enter zero for currencies that are not applicable.

Event Partner Payment Address Page

• Payee name: This is the name that will appear as “Pay to the order of” on a payment check from the REC Foundation.
• Name/Organization *: This is the name of the individual, school or organization hosting the event. It is the name that will appear on the mailing address where a payment check will be mailed.
• Address Line 1 *: This is the street address or PO Box where payment checks will be mailed.
• Address Line 2: This is a second line available for routing of mail.
• City *: This is the city where a payment check will be mailed.
• State / Province *: This is the State/Province where a payment check will be mailed.
• Zip / Postal Code *: This is the Zip/Postal code where a payment check will be mailed.
• Country *: This is the country where a payment check will be mailed.

Qualification Levels Page

Qualifications Required: This Yes/No field allows an Event Partner to indicate if qualification is required. This field should be left at the default value of No for all events except invitational/closed events, region championships, state championships, open championships, and VEX Worlds.

Awards Page

Use the pull down menu to select the awards you will offer at your event. If your event qualifies to a state/provincial/regional event, your RSM will identify the number of qualifying spots that move forward and the system will enter the mandatory awards based on the qualification system.

Note: If an award is added last minute to an event, it must be added to RobotEvents first before adding it to Tournament Manager.

Award Winners Page

You can use this tab to manually enter award winners. This should not be necessary if the awards were uploaded from Tournament Manager at the conclusion of your event.

Awards Finalization Page

Finalize Awards: This field should be left at the default value of “No.” The system changes the value to “Yes” if you choose to finalize when awards and results are uploaded from Tournament Manager. You can reset the value to “No” if you need to upload results again later, e.g. for each league session.

Additional Award Text: Optional text to display below the list of awards.

Survey Page

• This optional tab allows you to survey teams that will attend your event. It allows you to collect any information you may need. Click the green “+New Question” button to create a survey question.
• You might want to ask questions such as:
  
  • How many people in your group will be attending?
  • How many people in your group will be using our lunch services?
  • When will your team arrive?
  • Do you have anyone with your group that needs special accommodations?
  • Will your team be bringing an Engineering Notebook for Design Award judging?

Event Administrators Page

This page allows you to select additional Event Partners who may be helping you with your event to give them administrative privileges for your event on RobotEvents.com. Anyone listed as an Event Administrator must pass a background check in order for the event to be approved.

Registered Teams/Individuals Page

• This page allows you to see the teams (individuals for some workshops) registered for your event.
• It shows the Paid Status of each team as “paid” or “pending”.
• You can add teams to your event using the green “+Add Team” button in the upper right of the screen.
• You can use the orange “Mark Paid” button to change Paid Status of a team from “pending” to “paid”.

Waiting List Page

• This page allows you to see the teams on the Waiting List for your event.
• It shows the date the teams were added to the list.
• You may add teams to your waiting list using the green “+Add Team” button in the upper right portion of the screen.

Event Approval

When your event is ready for approval and all fields are green, click the “Ready for Approval” button so your RSM can review and approve the event. The RSM will review the information and let you know if anything needs to be revised. They will also select which awards will qualify teams to your regional championship event based on the qualification criteria and the region's needs.

You will be notified by your RSM when your event is approved, and they will share instructions on any applicable EP discounts for competition products and trophy packs.

Reviewing Events

After your event is approved, it is important to periodically review your event to ensure that the information is correct. When your RSM sets the qualification levels for your event, some awards may automatically be added. Please verify which awards appear in the Awards section several weeks prior to your event. For example, if you are hosting a blended event (ES/MS or MS/HS) and there are 10 or more teams from each grade level, then a separate Excellence Award will be added for each age group per the Judging rules. You will need to ensure you have adequate trophies, and communicate the awards to your Judging team prior to the event.

Some event information cannot be modified by the EP after the event is approved. If you need changes to your event and you no longer have access to the fields, you will need to contact your RSM for assistance.

Copying an Event

Once you have created an event on RobotEvent.com, you can copy that event to create additional events in the current season or for upcoming seasons.

1. Login to RobotEvents.com and select Admin to get to your EP Dashboard.
2. Select Events and modify the Season and Date Range filters to display the event that will be copied.
3. Select Links in the Actions column for your event.
4. Select Copy this Event in Downloads & Links.
5. Select the appropriate Event Type in the dropdown menu.
6. Modify the Event Name and Date, and then update the event content as needed.