Rumble In the Rockies VEX V5RC Signature Event: Middle School

General Info

Venue

Utah State Fairpark

Address

155 South 1000 West, Salt Lake City, Utah 84104, United States

Dates

January 27 – 28, 2027

Grade Level

Middle School

Skills Challenge

Yes

Judging Format

All Remote Judging

Registration & Logistics

Event Type

Open Tournament

Event Format

In-Person

Field Control

Smart Field Control

Capacity

64

Spots Open

45

Event Region

Utah

Max Registrations per Org

20

Priority Registration Opens

7-Oct-2026 12:00 EDT

Standard Registration Opens

21-Oct-2026 12:00 EDT

Registration Deadline

13-Jan-2027 12:00 EST

Payment Deadline

2 weeks from date of registration

Price

$375.00

Agenda

Travel Info

Date: 27-Jan-2027 - 28-Jan-2027 Utah State Fairpark 155 South 1000 West Salt Lake City, Utah 84104 United States Travel Info Rumble in the Rockies will be held at the Utah State FairPark which is halfway between the Salt Lake International Airport and downtown Salt Lake City. The FairPark is a large, 65-acre complex. Entry is from the east side of the complex, at about 200 N 1000 W. All pits, competition fields, practice fields, and Skills fields will be in the Grand Building (located in the southeast corner of the park). The Grand Building can be noisy so we will have a parents lounge in the Bonneville building, just across the parking lot. The Bonneville building will have tables, chairs, and monitors. We'll also provide complimentary coffee, hot chocolate, and toast. You are welcome to stay anywhere you like when you come to Salt Lake City; we don't rquire Stay to Play. However, we will ask you for lodging information (hotel, # of rooms, and # of guests) so we can pass it along to one of our sponsors, Sports Salt Lake. Their donation is dependent on how many rooms we account for in the Salt Lake City/Salt Lake County area. We have contracted with three hotels in the area ro provide a Rumble in the Rockies rate. We don't make any money off of this rate. It is the best rate we can get from each of these hotels. In an effort to incentivize people to stay at these hotels, so we can negotiate for even better rates, we will be setting up a practice field in each hotel. We did this last year, and it was popular, unfortunately we did suffer some damage to our plastic field perimeters. This year we will revert to steel perimeters to avoid this problem. Our most eonomical lodging is the Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Airport. The Rumble in the Rockies rate for ths hotel is $79/night plus tax. The Radisson is located at 2177 W North Temple, is just 2.2 miles from the FairPark. It is conveniently located about halfway between the Salt Lake International Airport and downtown Salt Lake City. They offer free transportation to and from the airport with a shuttle. They are about 4 minutes from the airport, and 7 minutes from downtown. They are located less than 1 block from Utah Trax Station which gives ready access to the entire Salt Lake City area. There is a fridge and microwave in every room. They also offer a complimentary breakfast each morning beginning at 6:00 am. There is an onsite restaurant, Soni's Tuscan Bistro, and a full-service bar. For your convenience we have made arrangements to set up a practice field in the conference room at the Radisson. To access our discounted rate for the Radisson, go to: https://www.choicehotels.com/reservations/groups/BI37F4I You can also contact the desk directly at 801-364-5800…

Judging Format

Judging Format Judging will be Digital Engineering Notebook Submissions / Initial remote eam interviews / In Person follow-up interviews as needed. Engineering notebooks must be submitted digitally by providing a link to your digital notebook. Notebooks are submitted through the team's events.vex.com logins by one of the team's registered contacts- Submitting a Digital Engineering Notebook – Global Robotics & Science Foundation .This link must be submitted by 4:00 pm Mountain Time, Friday, January 8th, 2027. A new requirement this year is to include up to three summaries in your notebook. These summaries are a Season Summary (1-page), a Code Summary (also 1-page, but this summary is only necessary if your team uses code for autonomous programs), and a Credit Summary. See Season, Code, and Credit Summaries for Judging – Global Robotics & Science Foundation for more information. Also different this year, it is no longer necessary to submit a separate form to be eligible for the Innovate Award. If you have something innovative that you want the judges to be aware of, you should mention it in your 1-page Season Summary. At this tournament it is NOT necessary to print out your summaries and turn them in. Your summaries just need to be in your notebook and easily found from your Table of Contents. To make it easy for the judges, we suggest your summary pages be hyperlinked from the Table of Contents with bidirectional page navigation, that is, a hyperlink from the ToC to the Summary Page, and a link on the Summary Page back to the ToC. If you want more information on how the judges will score your notebook, go here: Engineering Notebook Rubrics – Global Robotics & Science Foundation The first round of interviews will be held remotely in early January. The registration link will be posted when it is available.

Volunteer

Volunteer Hello Coaches and Competitors! We are very excited that your team has decided to attend Rumble in the Rockies 2027! Here are our Hype videos that have played in the VEX Dome at Worlds the past few year. This should be an example of what to expect at our event again this year. 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egf7YgADVz8 2025 High School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMqA093A8_8 2025 Middle School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Ia-cjWFew 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2WxqbTqkCg General Event Information From last year's event, the following will be making a return: • 8 practice fields, 5 skills fields • Hotels with practice fields in conference rooms • Our same great team to run our event • All former-student, and/or world head referee team • Parents Lounge for a quiet work place for parents/coaches with livestream (High School Only) In addition, we took your feedback from the event last year, and are excited to make the following updates to this year's event: • LED Walls instead of Projectors • IQ event at the same time as the Middle School Event! Out of state teams welcome, no fees to attend this event! Registration Due to the high expense for the event, registration fees are non-refundable. The event registration fee must be paid within 2 weeks of registration. Teams that are added to the event from the waitlist, are required to pay for the event registration fee within 1 week. Teams registering less than 2 weeks before the registration deadline must pay at the time of registration. Any team that fails to pay for their registration within these guidelines, will be moved to the waitlist and the spot will be opened up to other teams. Hotel Reservations We want you to pick any hotel for your stay here in Utah. We will ask where you stay for data purposes to get money back Salt Lake City, but our priority is for you to stay where it makes the most sense for your teams/organizations. We do have some hotels that we recommend. Stay at your own choice. The rates listed are what we have been able to negotiate. But often people have found better prices with different websites. Book how you want. We will collect info to show support in our own ways. Hilton Gardon Inn Airport: $152/Night, Back again this year. We have used this hotel in the past and it was great. Crystal Inn: $133/Night, nice hotel, we have used this hotel for all 4 years of Rumble. Clean facilities with a good breakfast and a pool. Radisson: $78/Night, We used this as our main hotel last year. We as a committee plan to stay here again. By far this is the cheapest option and is the closest to the venue. Please understand that we do not control the cost of hotels, this hotel is very inexpensive for reasons we do not control. Conference Rooms with Supplied fields/game kits. Just like last year, we plan to have a field in a conference room for at least 2 hotels, maybe more if we can make it happen. These fields will be old metal wall fields as plastic fields are too prone to damage. Conference rooms with fields cannot have students in them unsupervised. Behavior Please remember that while VEX and GRSF rules apply to the competition itself, everyone must always follow federal, state, and local laws, as well as the policies of the hotels you stay in. As per G1, you are representing your teams during all times at events. Poor behavior at hotels/restaurants can impact your team at events. Please be a good example to all those around us so that we can continue to run this event in the current location. Event Swag Event Swag will be available for both pre-order to be picked up at event registration, and for on site customization! What are we selling?!? • T-Shirts • Sweatshirts/hoodies • Rumble Event Hats More details coming in future emails! Judging…

Emergency/Bad-Weather Policy

Emergency/Bad Weather Policy In the case of bad weather please contact the Event Partner to discuss options. We are used to adverse weather in Utah. If weather is bad enough to not run this event we will figure out the best path forward for all involved.