Apparently, some teams have been building during the summer. Should I be concerned? Does everyone start this early in the season? I haven’t even started building yet…
You should not be worried. Be thankful there are a lot of design experimentation going on to better understand the game. I would advise to watch how the game is played, do critical thinking about why certain approaches are working now, will they work all season long?
Welcome to the forum!
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To be honest, my team starting building this month. Some teams do, some teams don’t. It just depends on who you are.
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Generally, some of the higher functioning teams usually start earlier on, but that does not mean all higher functioning ones do. It should not be difficult to catch up once you are up to speed. (Obviously depends on skill level etc.)
Hi, welcome to the vex forum!
If this is your first year (or even second year) in vex, then it might feel a bit overwhelming to see all of these other teams building their robots so early in the season (I personally was in both my first and second years in vex), but there is definitely nothing to be concerned about at all. In fact, you can take it to your advantage since you will have many more resources to work with such as robot reveals, and videos of matches.
To answer your second question, yes, many people will start building early in the year, but there is definitely no rush to do so (especially if you’re burnt out from a previous year and want a break). Normally, I’ve seen people start building over the summer in their second year of vex after they have some experience (some teams also may do so in their first year, but I haven’t seen many teams do this).
So definitely don’t worry if you haven’t started building yet, just try you best this season. Good luck!
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I have one year of experience in vex. I haven’t made it into my school’s robotics club yet but hopefully my reapplication works. Honestly, I won’t be very sad about not making it, because I’m a little nervous about trying to do the engineering notebook and come up with a good plan for Over Under. But-I will be ecstatic about getting in, because I do love robotics, even if it is challenging.
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Thats honestly such a great attitude!
There is definitely nothing to be nervous about with the engineering notebook and a plan for over under. Once you get started, all the ideas will just flow out, and it will just be so incredibly fun. Personally, this is my third year in vex, and I have loved robotics so much for the past three years. At the start of this year I also was nervous about the robot plan, but once you start watching videos, and matches, and look at robots from previous years or in FRC it’ll get really easy. In my first year, I was also really nervous about the design book because you have to write everything in pen (I did not know about digital notebooks back then) but once I got started it was just really easy.
So there is nothing to be nervous about at all, just have fun and great job!
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Yeah, my team just started building their drivetrain. Don’t worry, there are plenty of teams that are just now starting. Some teams start early, and that benefits the teams that start later because of their documentation. It’s very useful to have information and tools written by fellow teams to help you design, build, and code your robots.
Payne Stroud
Team 39232
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Not sure what your school’s robotics team look out for, but in my school, this is the sort of attitude that will get you into the team 
Having a positive mindset will get you there, bro!