I joined robotics club for my freshman year and I’ve been put on a senior team. I don’t know what im doing or what my role is. Is there anything i should know so i can be of more help??
Usually there are 4 main roles in a team:
- builder/designer (lot of resources out there to help you, but you usually need a lot of experience before you get good)
- coder (usually need some coding background, but still a lot of resources/templates out there)
- driver (purely experienced based, the only real way to prep is to either drive the robot a lot and watch videos of matches on youtube to study tactics)
- notebooker (not many resources, but a good community to help you)
As a newbie in an experienced team, you will most likely be delegated side tasks, but try to learn as much as possible from them. Ask them for the main role you are supposed to be. By the way, how maby people are on thr team? Which roles do they seem to have?
But here are the starting resources I gave to my new teammates:
General Stuff
https://wiki.purduesigbots.com (MUST READ!!! Contains almost everything about VEX)
VEX Robotics Competition (Vex teams of the world discord)
New Team Guide to VRC v2.0
New Team Guide To VRC ((both above are short in-a-nutshell guides. Ignore the challenge stuff as it changes every year, and this one is 2-3 years out of date)
The Game
V5RC High Stakes Game Manual - VEX Robotics (game manual)
https://youtu.be/Sx6HJSpopeQ?si=0CLQ5ueWgu0958Oj
Building tips (most of them are in the purdue wiki though)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYZlZ-HVwqm55HqWzljG4LLnPStByCmfI&si=5NxBb7mmzE4M-PXa (build tips)
https://youtu.be/K218QdJ-IAs?si=eJ0LH654xN8aeynr (build tutorial)
Coding
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPNtuCGtJi5LlS0tt2SF28JBSQteKViKO&si=dk4aHoMhmwWJC0cG (coding introduction)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSnZY5SL-Y5Nqwi6SHr9R0Z4DCeZzzlH2&si=zX77PAxFIBqlzIFL (another basic coding tutorial)
Notebooking
New engineering notebook tutorials (notebook tutorial)
Robot Notebookers (notebooking discord)
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For your first year, the best thing you could do, is just have fun.
Try to be as active a participant as you can, and show your dedication.
Stay active on the forums, it will help you stay connected, watch YouTube videos but again, just have fun and try to gain as much experience as you can.
Good luck!
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Wow @Gigahertz.t that is one of the best compilations in one post I’ve ever seen. I’m bookmarking it and hopefully it can be a post we link to all new posters that are looking for advice.
I will add, there is a lot to be learned from filtering threads for all the VEX V5 General Discussion and reading all the recent ones.
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Get Started: https://coding.vex.com/
And the VEX API: https://api.vex.com,
Python Documentation,
And some C++ Materials
Guide to Judging: https://kb.roboticseducation.org/hc/en-us/articles/4969763478167-Guide-to-Judging-Judging-Engineering-Notebooks
The Rubric: https://kb.roboticseducation.org/hc/en-us/articles/4461349729047-Judging-Resource-Engineering-Notebook-Rubric
Get Started: https://kb.roboticseducation.org/hc/en-us/articles/8374007847575-Get-Started-Notebooking
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Thanks for the resources, i will take a look at them. 
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Thanks, Im definitely having fun!
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Welcome to the community, I hope you and your team are doing well!
This should sums up everything. For the first year, it’s definitely hard to know how to get things going. Generally, just try to learn as much as possible (your dedication for VEX should be reflected through the 1st year), learn from the seniors, experiment new ideas, and have fun!
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What about this? I don’t think people edit it anymore, but still.
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I am also completely new to Vex, but I think the most important part (from what I have learned) is to learn something new. Also, I think that participating more will definitely help because
- Helps you understand Vex more
- You can then next year help someone else in need
Hope this helps
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