On behalf of the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation, welcome to the 2025-2026 VEX V5 Robotics Competition Push Back season. After an amazing competition season in 2025-26, we are very excited to offer our robotics community a fun and action-packed season!
The VEX V5 Robotics Competition provides secondary school students with an exciting engineering challenge presented in the form of a game. Students, with guidance from their teachers and mentors, build innovative robots and compete year-round.
In addition to learning valuable engineering skills, students gain life skills such as teamwork, perseverance, communication, collaboration, project management, and critical thinking. The VEX V5 Robotics Competition prepares students to become future innovators, with 95% of participants reporting an increased interest in STEM subject areas and pursuing STEM-related careers.
VEX V5 Robotics Competition Push Back is played on a 12’ x 12’ square field configured as seen above. Two (2) Alliances – one (1) “red” and one (1) “blue” – composed of two (2) Teams each, compete in matches consisting of a fifteen (15) second Autonomous Period, followed by a one minute and forty-five second (1:45) Driver Controlled Period.
The object of the game is to attain a higher score than the opposing Alliance by Scoring Blocks in Goals, Controlling zones within Goals, and Parking in defined zones at the end of the Match.
Teams also compete in the Robot Skills Challenge where one robot takes the field to score as many points as possible. These matches consist of Driving Skills Matches, which will be entirely driver controlled, and Autonomous Coding Skills Matches, which will be autonomous with limited human interaction.
The Game Manual is the rulebook that all teams must adhere to. Everything you need to know to allow you to build a legal robot and to understand the rules of the game is included in this document
New to Robotics? Want to know how to start a team in one of our programmes? Learn how to run a successful VEX Robotics Competition Team with these articles.
The official VEX forum is a place for teams and mentors from all over the world to discuss robot design, strategy and to help and support each other.