TYRA SSMS VEX IQ Robotics Competition 3rd Annual Turkey Showdown

Agenda

Agenda is subject to minor changes as necessary.

Volunteer

Each registered team is expected to bring 1 volunteer.  This can be an adult or extra student, there are plenty of jobs available.  

 Contact Bryan Cole at [email protected] for more information. 

Emergency/Bad Weather Policy

In the event of an emergency or weather-related closure, we will contact registered teams. 

Refund and Payment Policies

If the Event Partner cancels the event: 

All registered teams will receive refunds or free entry to make-up event or next event SSISD Robotics runs. 

If a Coach/Mentor completes registration for the event then chooses to withdraw or not attend:

No Refunds

Date: 14-Nov-2026

Travel Info

Please pull into the back, larger parking lot on the south side of the building.  Those doors will be the doors used that day for team and spectator entry/exit.

Judging Format

Judging Format

The Team Interviews and Engineering Notebooks will be judged in-person the day of the event. Teams should bring a physical copy of their notebook to submit to the judges.

Communications Tab

This tab will have a copy of all of the emails that have been sent out to all coaches, to help keep everyone informed, no matter when they were able to sign up.  

Email 9/22 

Thank you for signing up your teams to participate in SSISD Robotics' first hosted VEX IQ competition of the year on 11/14 at Sulphur Springs Middle School.  

I am excited to see so many familiar emails and organization names sign up for our VEX tournament, as like many of you, I was very concerned about what things may look like this year after the summer of chaos we have had!  

This year, we are asking each team to bring a volunteer to help the tournament run smoothly.  The volunteers will be Scorekeepers, Judges, or Field Resetters, depending on age, activity level, and interest.  Please talk to your spectators and then fill out this form.  

Volunteers will get lunch and a t-shirt as long as they are signed up through that Form.  

Basic early information about our event- 

We ask that teams, buses, parents and spectators park in the large south parking lot behind the building.  That back door should be unlocked and available for the entire day.  

We will have a check-in table right inside the back door, where teams can quickly give their team numbers to a volunteer to sign them in on an iPad, and get their welcome envelope.  Inside your welcome envelope, you will have a Q&A form, and your drive team and coaches badges.  

Each team number will have 3 drive team badges and 1 coach badge.  These drive team badges must be worn at the fields by team members, and of course can be swapped around as your drive team changes.  

The Coaches badges allow limited access to our pit area, which will be in our small practice gym.  Limited access means you are more than welcome to help your teams set up in their pits, and check in throughout the day.  We ask that you are not in the pits with your students all day.  Once the qualifying matches start, we will usher adults out of the pits.  We would like to maintain the integrity of our competition by making sure the students are doing all of the work and learning in this student-centered event!

Inspection will happen from doors open 8:30 until every team is done inspecting or 10am, whichever comes first.  The quicker we can get all teams inspected, the better!  We will start early and end early if that happens, which is great for everyone involved!  Please turn your physical notebooks in at inspection.  

Lunch- On the agenda, it says that lunch will be 12-1.  If we are running ahead of schedule, we will stick to this.  Often at our tournaments, we usually start back up after lunch around 1230-1245.  We always try to hard stop at 12 noon, as I know how difficult it is to schedule lunches with busloads of hungry kids!  

Lunch options- We are looking into potential food truck options for this event, as that was a big hit last year for State.  SSHS Choir will be running our concession stand for snacks and drinks, and they MAY decide to do pizza as well, I will keep you updated.  

If every team that is currently registered shows up, we will be giving away a Middle School AND an Elementary Excellence Award (according to the old rules of tournament splitting for blended events).  In order to qualify for excellence, your team must post an autonomous skills score!  

Even under our worst conditions (knock on wood) we have never had a tournament go past 430-5pm.  

We will be running 2 competition fields and 2 Skills fields.  The Skills area will be out in our cafeteria area.  

Our competition space is our competition gym.  

Please reach out to me with any and all questions or concerns you may have.  We are excited to host y'all!  

Waitlist

3 teams are on the waitlist for this event.