We are a brand new team and need some tips on how to get good essentially, I have a little bit of experience with building, driving, and the notebook. We competed in a single competition last season at the very end and then we were done. Do you have any suggestions for newer teams that don’t know how to really keep up with the competition?
Here are three of the biggest tips I have for you! All these tips are for IQ and VRC!
- build with purpose. Everything you build should be useful to your robot and solve a problem within the game.
- Do your research. If you build a robot without watching reveals, looking at game changes, looking within the game manual, you will not succeed. You need to ensure that you continue to look at other sources for help. (Even great teams do this) Metas will change, try to stay with them. (Example would be bowling)
- Plan ahead. Make sure you make goals. For example, I wanted to add a PTO (piston that switches a gear to another mechanism) onto our robot. However, we had already built too much around that area that it was almost impossible to build. Another example is that we had planned to build a simple hang mechanism in the beginning of the year. Then, we saw the “ace hang” and wanted to build that. Then the high hang came out and we decided to build that. By the time that we were ready to build our arm, we didn’t know what to build. We eventually went back to the simple arm of the beginning. Why did we do all this stressing over nothing? It’s ok to switch plans, but make sure you have strong reasoning to do so.
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Well, there isn’t just essentially one thing you can do to get ‘better’, but I have some recommendations. YouTube, watch all kinds of videos from other teams whether it’s about building or a competition interview, just watch, I’m sure you can learn from that. See if your area have any vex or robotic related summer camps or activities. These were very helpful when I was first starting out. And most importantly practice! Get your team together, and even if it’s just a speedbot you need to get driver skills down. Establish who on your team is going to do what in the upcoming season and start from there. And keep in mind you can always ask your robotics teacher for any tips they may have. Good Luck! 
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This might be helpful to you: New Team Guide to VRC v2.0
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Honestly, something that helped our team a lot was being really diligent with the notebook - it teaches you about the design and building process a lot, and it’s easy points if you do it well (which is really beneficial for a team with less experience in competitions)
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I have a few things to add, here is this man who is a goat at introduction to vex and general vex tutorials
Also I would just say read the rules, like really read them. Also don’t ignore the forum and especially not YT reveals, keep with the meta, try your best and spend time with the robot. Work hard. Don’t overlook the notebook, notebook qualifies a lot of teams so watch out for that. Go to as many comps as you can but I would space them out every 2 weeks so you can redesign, reprogram, or just drive more. Lastly just have fun and enjoy it while it lasts.
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Also adding this guide for your reference
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