I am new to vex. And my classmates who have been doing it for years, are all egotistical boys who refuse to teach me anything (my teacher is the same). And I was wondering if anyone has building tips, or tips in general for building, and going to competitions?
I am sorry your classmates and teacher have not been helpful. Expect to get many good pointers on the forum. I will point to two:
VEX Library for V5
This will help you understand the mechanical and electronics of the V5 system.
RECF Library for VEX V5 Robotics Competition
https://v5rc-kb.recf.org/hc/en-us
This will help you navigate VEX V5 Robotics Competition.
Follow this forum, and there are tons of videos on YouTube.
You could do what my team did and build a tank>
I would highly, HIGHLY recommend you use a platform like Discord to join many of the online vex communities, such as VexCad. These are full of many amazing, helpful people who will be able to provide personal feedback and advice. I would also use YouTube as a valuable resource, as I was able to teach myself how to build with V5 parts almost exclusively from YouTube and Discord tutorials.
Not sure how helpful this will be, but…
General:
Completely new to Vex. Anything i should know? - VEX Forum
New Team Starting Resources - VEX Forum
New Team Guide to VRC v2.0 - VEX Forum
Wikis:
Purdue SIGBots Wiki
Wiki - VEX Forum
Drivetrains by Xenon27:
Catalogue of Drive Gearings - VEX Forum
Designing Another Quality Drive - VEX Forum
Build Quality:
Xenon27’s topics above
And Ryan Liao’s (@Ryan_4253B ) building masterclass on Youtube
Vexcode API (also built into Vexcode via question mark):
VEXcode V5 API Reference Guide — VEXcode Documentation
Robot ideas:
FUN Pits and Parts explanations (Youtube)
663J Robot Reveal (no video) - VEX Forum
Search results for ‘high stakes reveal’ - VEX Forum
My team was that way too. I’m sorry. Also, you could make a really strong base with only two Omni-wheels and two regular wheels so that way you can shove robots twice your size really far. Our team got the nickname “Little bully robot” Because we were always distracting our opposing alliances and shoving robots twice our size all the way across the field.
Use CAD first, before building the robot. This lets you digitally design and tweak the robot beforehand, so that you don’t have to take entire subsystems off to replace one thing.
Onshape is a great way to CAD, as it is completely free and has almost every part.
I’d like to add that for new users protobot is also a very good option.
1st) Believe in your abilities
2nd) Watch Luke Does Robotics and Fun Robotics networks (mainly watch VEX’s but if you want to implement stuff from FRC or FTC, go ahead)I’ve learned a lot.
3rd) Purdue’s BLRS web page works too (Has literally all the information)
4th) be open to trying new things, (I started as a Notebooker (still am) and I developed my knowledge of building through analyzing how robots were built)
5th) CAD (brainstorming ideas on a CAD file can make it very easy to build=> Onshape is free and easily usable but you can also use Fusion 360)
6th) Gain the trust of your teammates => make it your goal to prove that your team won something mainly because of you => they’ll get around after that
7th) If that doesn’t work, maybe start your own team (if your at a public school, it’ll be easier but private teams will take a lot more care and management)
Good luck this season, strive for the best and you’ll achieve it => our team is on a current turnaround which has ignited us
heheh, that’s awesome, perhaps I shall try it
our teams blueprint looks like this, and is how a lot of teams do the basic mechanisms. This might give you an idea. If you don want to use it, most teams have: An axle at the front surrounded by something grippy to suck in rings, a conveyor belt to carry them up and backward and rop them, and a clamp using a c-channel to hook onto the mobile goals, and bring them onto a bar that hovers barely above the floor to keep away friction. This allows a way to drow the rings directly onto the mobile goal with little effort. To top it all off, a six wheeled drivetrain, with omni wheels on the outside, traction on he inside, and all connected, with 2 motors (green cartridge) powering each side, making 4 motors total for drive. The blueprint for one way to do it is below:
