As you can tell from the title

[anon50541363]

This is copied word for word from @ring.bells in this thread:
https://vexforum.com/t/first-time-captain-advice/48002/1

[AlexM_4478X]

This is copied word for word from @ring.bells in this thread:
https://vexforum.com/t/first-time-captain-advice/48002/1

[josh_siegel]

@AlexM_4478X I realize it is the same post but I am just going to post my advice anyway, maybe someone will enjoy it lol

So… I had a similar experience going into Starstruck except I was inexperienced with everything lol! Nevertheless I was the captain for my time all through Starstruck and In the Zone and will try to tell you the enormous mistakes I made not only as a Captain but just as a part of my team in hopes you can avoid them.

1. DON’T believe for a second anything is going to be easy to build or program or whatever. Everything and anything we wanted to do took at least double the amount of time we wanted and encountered challenges along the way to make even the slightest task difficult.
2. DON’T take on a giant design and try to make something super complex as beginners. I am sure @AlexM_4478X can agree (we were in the same region) that my team had some really odd designs at the beginning of Starstruck and In The Zone that absolutely did not work the way we hoped and caused us to completely fail tournaments. The way that we found success and were able to qualify for Worlds in In The Zone was we split up our robot’s task for different competitions. Taking on something really complicated and hard to build as a rookie just is not going to work. If you don’t have experience building and the rest of your team doesn’t, try just building a really simple drivetrain and learning the fundamentals; such as the importance of bearings, keeping shaft lengths as short as possible, having a sturdy structure, friction issues, and the list goes on and on.
3. Something that I still wish I could do better was to allow other people to help. I don’t know about other captains but I am a perfectionist and it took me a long time to be able to step back and let my teammates make mistakes and not hold their hands all of the way through. Your robot doesn’t have to be perfect and win everything, as long as you are learning and continually making improvements that is what counts. Winning is a by product of learning and making successful adjustments.
4. Realize that experience does not mean you are right. This was something I felt like I did well but I have seen it a lot and it infuriates me. Listen to your team and try to be democratic and all share a vision for something that the team universally believes can perform the task well.
5. Keep up with the VEX community. If someone does something online that you think is done really well, try to reach out to them or build something similar. My greatest creation was my double reverse 4 bar in In the Zone which took an enormous amount of inspiration from teams like 118/2131C in Skyrise and 8675A in In The Zone. Also the VEX community makes the absolute most killer memes. The caps in Turning Point are waffles…

Those are just a few things and I have A LOT more but I doubt anyone would like to read more than this. Good Luck to you and your team!

[Droideka]

This is copied word for word from @ring.bells in this thread:
https://vexforum.com/t/first-time-captain-advice/48002/1

It’s weird how someone could copy/paste someone else’s topic to try getting an answer from that exact question.

hello

As you can tell from the title, I need some advice on being a good team captain. I’ve been doing VEX for about 3 years now and because I have the most experience on my team, I have elected this year’s team captain. I am pretty excited for this role but I feel unprepared. Previously, I have never really been active in other parts of robotics other than programming. I did my job and then sat back and let the drivers and builders do their thing.

Obviously, I can’t do that this year. I come from a school where it is really hard to get people interested in robotics and I want to change that. I’m looking for advice from other team captains or leaders on how you overcome general team laziness and how to motivate them through rebuilds and failures.

This topic has brief answers that people took time typing in. What you’re doing is creating spam threads. To the which, is unneeded! If you found a thread that has brief answers to the exact question you copied/paste, then read the comments and DON’T CREATE ANOTHER THREAD AND COPY THE EXACT WORDS THAT HAVE BEEN SAID BY ANOTHER PERSON!!!

This comment is not intended to be mean… really, I’m not [trying] to be rude. I’m not a “Spam police”, but creating a thread like this angers me and [and some] other people who are sick of spams, repeatedly asking questions while it is already answered, not checking the game manual for rule clarifications etc.

Furthermore, look for a topic that has already have the answer to your question. If you can’t find a thread that answers your question, then feel free to create a thread. If you’re unsure about a rule for Turning Point, go look in the manual. If you don’t find anything in the manual, search for a thread in the forum. If you still can’t find anything, then create a thread.