Code of Conduct

Global Robotics and Science Foundation is committed to a competitive environment that is safe, respectful, educational, and centered on students, where students do the work and adults support and teach them. Every participant shares responsibility for maintaining that environment. The VEX Philosophy explains those beliefs more fully.

This Code sets the standards of behavior expected of everyone who takes part in the VEX Robotics Competitions ("the VEX Competitions"): students and their families, coaches and mentors, event attendees, volunteers, and officials, Event Partners and sponsors, Global Robotics and VEX Robotics staff, and spectators. Taking part in any VEX Competition activity means accepting this Code and all related rules, procedures, and safety requirements.

This Code works alongside the Student-Centered Policy, which sets the standard for work that belongs to the students. It is supported by the Youth Protection and Safety Policy, which sets the rules for adults and the protections every student can count on; the Reporting Procedures and Conduct Review Procedures explain how to raise a concern and how concerns are handled. Each is part of this Code and applies according to its terms.

Related documents:

• Event Policies and Procedures – provided with Event Partner training
• Judge Guide and Certification

The Commitments

The Code of Conduct comes down to these commitments. They are to be remembered, taught, and recited. They summarize the rest of this Code. Every participant in the VEX Competitions is expected to keep these commitments.

1. Safety: Put student safety first, always.
2. Respect: Treat every person with respect.
3. Learning: Let students do the work and own their decisions.
4. Integrity: Compete within the rules and own the result.
5. Fairness: Follow the rules, and expect officials to follow them too.
6. Reporting: Report concerns and violations, and protect those who do.

Safety

Safety is what makes learning possible. Physical safety, emotional safety, and the safety of students from the adults around them are not separate from the educational mission. They are the conditions that allow it to exist.

Adults keep students safe when they:

• Place student wellbeing above competitive outcomes.
• Model the conduct they expect from students.
• Maintain transparent and appropriate boundaries with students.
• Communicate in ways that are observable to other adults and to parents or guardians.

The Youth Protection and Safety Policy sets out the requirements behind these responsibilities. The Safety Policy sets out the physical safety requirements for team workspaces, robots, and events.

Respect

Respect holds the community together. The VEX Competitions work because participants treat each other with respect. Respect is not a feeling, it is something you do. It shows up in how teammates, opponents, judges, volunteers, and newcomers are treated, in how participants act under pressure, and in how they respond when they are wrong.

Participants demonstrate respectful conduct when they:

• Speak and act respectfully under pressure.
• Welcome new and different participants into the community.
• Resolve ordinary disagreements through dialogue first when safe and appropriate, and through official processes when needed.
• Acknowledge the work and success of other teams.
• Take responsibility for their own mistakes.

Learning

Students grow most when they own the work. The value of the VEX Competitions comes from what students learn by doing, by making real decisions, taking real responsibility, and standing behind real outcomes. Adults teach, advise, and support, but the work belongs to the students.

The Student-Centered Policy sets the standard for student ownership of the team's work and explains what it means in practice.

Integrity

Competition is worth the most when a team competes honestly. What makes competing worthwhile is the effort a team puts in and what it learns by doing the work the right way. That effort and that learning belong to the team that earns them. Another team's misconduct may affect a result, but it cannot diminish the value of work honestly done. A team protects that worth by controlling the one thing it always controls: how honestly it competes.

Teams compete with integrity when they:

• Compete within the game's rules, not around them.
• Demonstrate that their work is their own.
• Earn their rankings, results, and advancement through real performance.
• Keep their records, documents, and information truthful.
• Keep outcomes free of payments, gifts, or favors.
• Respect other teams' right to compete and their equipment.
• Support their alliance partners in good faith.
• Own up to their mistakes and violations when they find them.

At Regional, Signature, and World Championship events, teams may take part in a Design Review: students show that the work is their own, explain it, and answer questions. This is not an accusation. It is the ordinary expectation of this Code: that students do and understand their own work. The Design Review is a formal version of that, held at the largest events, where resources are available. A team that has done its own work is already prepared. How Design Reviews are conducted is set out in the Design Review procedure.

Fairness

Fairness means the rules are the same for everyone, and they bind the people who enforce them as much as the people who compete. Participants follow the reasonable instructions of referees, judges, inspectors, safety personnel, volunteers, Event Partners, and Global Robotics staff. Disagreements should be raised through official processes, not pressure or confrontation.

Event personnel hold themselves to that same standard. They act fairly when they:

• Judge and officiate impartially.
• Keep deliberations, conduct reports, and other sensitive information confidential.
• Step back from decisions where they have a conflict of interest.
• Treat every participant with respect.
• Use the authority of their role only for its proper purposes.

Reporting

Protecting all of this is not the work of Global Robotics alone. Every participant shares the work of keeping the VEX Competitions safe and honest, and that means speaking up when something is wrong.

The Reporting Procedures and Conduct Review Procedures explain how to raise a concern and how concerns are handled.

Scope and Applicability

This Code applies throughout the VEX Competitions. That includes team spaces and team activities, the events and the places they are held, travel to and from those events, and the online spaces tied to a team and its events, such as livestreams, broadcasts, and chats.

What brings conduct under this Code is its connection to a team or the Competitions, not where it takes place. So the Code does not apply just because someone uses VEX products, lessons, or materials in a classroom, a summer camp, or another learning setting. It does apply to conduct connected to a VEX Competition team or its activities, wherever that conduct happens.

Participants must still follow all laws, venue rules, and organization policies that apply to them. When this Code and the law differ, follow whichever one protects people more. When this Code and another Global Robotics policy conflict, follow whichever one protects people more. When this Code and event-specific guidance conflict, this Code wins. Gameplay, scoring, inspection, and judging are decided by the official competition rules.

Global Robotics may change, update, or add to this Code from time to time. A new version takes effect when it is published, and it replaces the one before it.