Practice VEX at Home for Free: VEXcode VR, Virtual Skills and the VEX CS Courses

1. VEXcode VR: A Virtual VEX Robot in Your Browser

VEXcode VR is VEX's simulator. Students write code for a virtual robot and watch it run in a 3D "playground": mazes, grids, art canvases and game fields. According to VEX, it runs in the browser on Chromebooks, Windows and Mac computers, iPads and Android tablets, with no software to install and no student accounts required.

Free versus paid versions

The free version gives you a set of playgrounds and Blocks coding, which is plenty for beginners. VEX also sells educator licenses (Enhanced and Premium) that add Python, more playgrounds, offline use and competition simulations. Tiers and pricing change, so compare them on VEX's VEXcode VR page before buying anything. For most families, free is the right place to start.

Why the virtual robot transfers to the real one

The virtual robot uses the same kind of commands students use in VEXcode on a physical robot: drive for a distance, turn to a heading, wait until a sensor sees something. A student who learns to break a task into steps, use a loop and react to a sensor value in VR brings that thinking straight to a V5 or IQ robot. What VR cannot teach is mechanical: friction, battery sag and a wheel that slips. Real-robot time still matters.

Blocks first, then text

VEX's learning path runs from Blocks to text coding. In our classes, students who have spent a few weeks in Blocks usually move to Python faster, because the logic is already familiar and they only have to learn the syntax.

2. The VEX Computer Science Courses: A Real Curriculum, Not Just Tinkering

Free playgrounds are fun, but students improve faster with a sequence. VEX publishes Computer Science + Robotics courses on its education site, built entirely in VEXcode VR: CS Level 1 in a Blocks version and a Python version.

What CS Level 1 covers

The CS Level 1 Blocks course has nine units and a capstone:

1. Introduction and Fundamentals
2. Moving Your Robot
3. Repeating Behaviors
4. Navigating a Maze
5. Detecting Walls from a Distance
6. Knowing Your Location
7. Decisions with Colors
8. Moving Disks with Loops
9. Developing Algorithms

The capstone is a Coral Reef Cleanup challenge. VEX describes the course as teaching project flow, loops, conditionals and algorithms. Notice how many units are about sensors: distance, location and color. That is exactly what separates a beginner autonomous routine from a reliable one.

Activities and Activity Labs for shorter sessions

VEX's guide to VEXcode VR curriculum also lists VR Activities, one-page challenges students can do on their own, and Activity Labs, which chain several activities together. These are perfect for a 20-minute session on a school night when a full lesson is too much.

How parents can help without coding

You do not need to know how to code. Ask your student to explain the plan before they run it, and to predict what the robot will do. When the prediction is wrong, ask what they will change. That is the engineering design process, and it is the same habit judges look for in a VEX engineering notebook.

3. Virtual Skills and Driving Practice for Competition Teams

If your student is on a registered competition team, there is a bigger tool in the box. VEX's Virtual Skills playgrounds put a virtual robot on the current game field. For the 2025-26 season, VEX says a registered V5RC team can play Push Back Virtual Skills in VEXcode VR and submit scores to the Virtual Skills Leaderboard during the season; non-registered users need a VEXcode VR Premium license. VEX IQ teams get a matching Mix & Match playground.

Autonomous practice on the game field

The virtual Hero Bot in the Push Back playground has a GPS Sensor and an AI Vision Sensor, so students can practice the kind of sensor-driven autonomous code top teams use. It is a safe place to try a risky route, because a crash costs nothing but a reset.

Virtual Driving Skills with a real controller

Driver practice at home is possible too. VEX's Virtual Driving Skills guide lays out the steps:

1. Open the Virtual Driving Skills page in Google Chrome (it only works in Chrome).
2. Log in with your team's Virtual Skills Key.
3. Connect a V5 controller (or an IQ 2nd-generation controller for VIQRC) to the computer and wait for the status to show Connected.
4. Pick a drive mode: Tank, Left Arcade, Right Arcade or Split Arcade.
5. Press Play and drive a one-minute run, then hit Retry and go again.

Use the same drive mode your team uses on the real robot so the muscle memory carries over.

A note on team registration in 2026

Virtual Skills access comes from team registration. On May 10, 2026, VEX told event partners in an email reposted on the VEX Forum that VEX competitions will be administered by VEX Robotics in coordination with the Global Robotics and Science Foundation, and that the REC Foundation is no longer authorized to run VEX competitions. If your team plans to register for the 2026-27 VEX season, follow VEX's official announcements for where and when registration opens.

A sample weekly home plan

Two 30-minute VR coding sessions working through CS Level 1, one 20-minute Virtual Driving Skills session with the team's controller, and ten minutes writing up what changed in the team notebook. That is about 90 minutes a week, and students show up to the next team meeting with code ideas instead of questions.

Conclusion

You do not need a robot on the kitchen table to get better at VEX. Start with free VEXcode VR and the CS Level 1 lessons to build coding logic. Add Virtual Skills and Virtual Driving practice if your student is on a registered team. Then bring those skills back to the real robot, where friction, batteries and loose screws teach the rest. Keep notes on what you try; it all feeds the engineering notebook.

Want your student to try a real VEX robot after practicing virtually? Our in-store VEX classes in Cumming pair hands-on building with VEXcode programming. Contact us about upcoming VEX classes.

Frequently Asked Questions