so im in my fifth year in vex, and i feel like im not building a good enough robot to show that ive been doing this for that time. admittedly, i havent really tried to discover what makes a robot better, look cleaner, and work more consistently, and i havent found any links that teach you those things. Are there any links or resources that i can review so i can be prepared for next season? I feel hopeless for this year, and with regionals in only a couple days, i dont think ill have enough time to make the robot i wanted to and was expected to.
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Paint/decorated polycarb
Hide your axles and nuts
However, this is all subjective based on your robot build. Can we see your robots? (I can’t really give too much blanket statements, but from my experience it helps to teach people from examples of how they made mistakes)
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These are two of mine, one was used for tower takeover and one was spin up. Tbf i learned a lot between tower takeover and now, but i wanna know what the next steps are
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There are subtle things also. In your 2nd pic… you could push the axles forward/backwards another hole or two if you would scallop the frame slightly to make room for the wheel. This amounts to lengthening the wheelbase another couple of inches… generally an increase of 10-15%. This improves stability and prevents tipping.
There are a LOT of small optimizations like this available.
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what about things like organizing the battery and brain and stuff? Because for my current robot i have a 1x5x1 c-channel that has the brain and radio on top, with the battery on the bottom
You shouldn’t need a 1x5 c-channel to mount stuff. I just use 1 1x2 c-channel fot the brain and 1 for the battery. Brain & battery organization (in my opinion) doesn’t matter too much as long as all the wires can reach the brain and your battery cable isn’t easy to unplug.
To get better, try looking at robot explanations and reveals. They are usually done by advanced teams and there is a lot you (as I did) learn from them (or FUN RECF videos)
However,
Going from your pictures, I see a great improvement from the 2nd one to the first one. In the 2nd one, I see a modified clawbot. In the 1st one, I see an original/mix mash of ideas with great execution and potential. Could we see some pics of your current bot?
Here is our robot when we left it our 2nd to last week before states. Ignore the arm part it wasnt finished lol
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Well, here are some recommendations for you:
- Start using screwjoints for your drivebase wheels
- Stop using 1x5 c-channels wherever possible
- Try not to mount your wall riders so far up (makes them prone to bending). Just use a 36 tooth gear mounted on a screw joint.
- Use a 6 motor drive, replacing that arm motor with pneumatics.
- Add some wings
- Adding on to #4, with enough actuators you can also make that arm a b-tier hang
- Brace the front of your drivetrain a bit and add some barrier sleds
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I learned from just watching a lot of YouTube. Look at good teams and their explanations and reveals, you will be able to see a lot of what they do like weight management, brain and battery placement, etc.
Try watching Seaquam robotics videos they have some about bad building habits. And there’s also Ryan Liao’s build videos that have some more building techniques.
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Adding onto that Kepler electronics also has some great build videos.
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I think of as doing tetris. I think of a function that I want to add to my robot and divide the space that I have to maximize the space. After that, I specify the design and the specifics. It is also helpful to look a lot of robots in youtube where there are so many creative ideas and functions. Even your robot has less functions than the others, it can be covered up by good strategies and teamwork. Anyways, good luck for the rest of the season!
I recommend just watching a lot of YouTube videos on other peoples robots and watching games, and also seeing what all the really good robots put on their robots and asking them about it and analyzing it all to see whats the best thing you could do. ive been told robotics is all about copying and not too say to copy a whole other robot but definitly take ideas that other teams.
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