All good points. One thing that I do tell my students - that just like in school - when you get on a team in indusry, you will have a team made up of the “A” team, the “B” team, and the “C” team. As a leader, it is your responsibility to make each person feel valued and provide them with assignments that are appropriate for their skill level. It is very easy to marginalize people in the “C” team or even the “B” team, but it really behooves everyone to find meaningful activities for them so that they can contribute to the team at their level of ability. Sometimes a person that is a “C” player on one team can be an “A” player on another team depending on their skills. VEX provides such a great opportunity to teach the soft skills that are valuable in the workplace that I tend to downplay winning in favor of learning. But that is a personal choice and I understand that not everyone approaches it this way.
I’d like to emphasize these points.
I do have some trouble working with others simply because they’re not up to my experience. But, on the rare occasions I do get a chance to work with others (where I’m not carrying the team), it’s a great experience. I thought for a long time that I liked FRC more than Vex because it was a higher scale of competitive robotics, but, in retrospect, I realize that I loved my time there so much because of the large team interplay.
I’ve since sought to replicate such a thing on my Vex team, but I haven’t quite been able to do it. And that saddens me, because I do try really hard.
I wish the world worked out exactly right with everyone every time. But that’s just not how it is. On a smaller scale, I’ve been using my experience to help lift others up a level or two. And, in doing so, I’ve realized exactly what makes a great team (which I think is important for each individual to discover for themselves).
But now I’m off topic. A one-man team sounds good in theory, but it wasn’t until I tried it truly did I realize exactly how hard it was. I’ve since tried to really recruit more people, and not only for my own benefit.
By all means, I encourage everyone to do what best suits them. But in doing so, I also encourage them to consider the options and consequences.
I’m just going to condense this thread into one post, and address some problems. So first of all no one man team to the extent of this forum’s memory has won worlds, but a few 1 man teams have gotten close. and a few effectively one man teams have won worlds.
The end/dream goal is to win worlds, but I know that’s pretty unlikely, and I wouldn’t be sad if I didn’t win because the chances of winning are 1/10,000. However I think that doing well, or winning worlds with a 1 man team isn’t impossible because getting a consistent auton now, is a lot easier than it used to be (If you have v5), so with a little bit of time, auton isn’t that big of an issue. With building It doesn’t actually take that long If you have a lot of experience, and you have a clear image of what you want to make. Obviously you will have a few problems with your build at first but if you build over the summer you will usually have enough time to build a good robot, and make a good auton. You may have to make a redesign, but as I said earlier I have a lot of time on my hands because I’m in 8th grade. I hate making an engineering notebook, but if you spend 20-30 minutes on it everyday, it can become very good. As many have pointed out, scouting at competitions is an issue, but for big competitions, and even some smaller ones (like states) I usually have my mom, and maybe my brother to help me with things like greeting the judges and scouting. Basically, winning and having a good robot all boils down to putting a lot of time in, getting enough input on your design, and getting a little support at competitions.
I admire your input but I wouldn’t get too ambitious.
I’m going to have to disagree with this. V5 may be more powerful in terms of electronics compared to V4, but consistency that isn’t victim to hardware issues almost always comes down to how good your code is. Most of the best teams out there put more time into their code than the build itself, because there is practically no limit on how good your code can get, there is always room for improvement. Based on this past season too, I would argue that V5 really isn’t much more reliable than V4 hardware-wise. It may be more powerful, but there isn’t a correlation between power and consistency. Given that you are only in the 8th grade as well, there may be some coding techniques that you can’ t understand too well because you won’t know the math behind it.
I feel like this is really case dependent. Games like skyrise put a huge emphasis on build quality when it came to things like cross supports, anti-tip, pneumatic mechanisms, etc. Friction is another build-related topic that vex parts are victims of, so that can also become an annoyance.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t underestimate anything. Especially in competitive robotics, I would be ready to expect the unexpected because you never know when something just won’t work.
I Agree with you about the coding (I have put a lot more emphasis on building rather than coding) But I’m not too bad at it because I have been doing Vex since Nothing But Net and I’m in geometry (i know geometry isn’t very advanced but It’s better than 8th grade math). I also know how much things can go wrong lol, In turning point the metal holding my catapult bent and snapped at states, and in Itz, my cortex broke, and my computer died because the battery inside it broke at states so I’m no stranger to bad luck/mistakes. What I’m basically trying to say is if you are very invested in vex and put a lot of time in you can do pretty well , even as a 1 man team.
Just want to highlight that even though this list of illustrious teams are known as one-man team, they do get support from close friends or family members during worlds.
But yes, they mainly built and programmed their robots on their own.
So it is back to the same initial question - how much of an one-man team are you?
And in general, you can still be very competitive and do very well by building and programming alone, but do try to get additional help when comes to worlds.
And as pointed out by many others - there is lots of value in learning to work as a team 
IMO there is no way to 100% be a one person team. This is not in regards to building or coding, but rather going to a comp. In a comp, there are so many teams to scout and it can be overwhelming for a one person team, especially when that one person has to drive (also, that one person has to drive without coaching from someone else). Even at worlds, I believe 1103 got coaching from his sister at worlds (correct me if I’m wrong). In order to win a tournament, you need support and there’s no getting around that.
PS I didn’t mention notebook because that doesn’t need to be done. I like to actually do videos instead, it saves time for me and is most of the time more descriptive than a notebook entry due to the visuals. Also, scouting is not an option. Somebody can have the best robot in the world but a bad driver or get carried to a high seed.
Another team that came close to winning worlds was 9605A. If their chain hadn’t lost their intake chain, then imo they should have been favorites going into rr. (They lost to the China alliance by 1 point even though their intake chain snapped) Note that I am not saying that the chain snapping couldn’t have been mitigated by a change in design, just that one man teams can be very successful.
You mentioned a discord server, do you happen to have an invite link to a semi-active one? I use discord to chat with people about fpv drones all the time but am yet to find a good vex server.