Recently a video of our team’s first robot had come across me and dang was it cringy.
So our team’s first year of robotics was a disaster, at least not in the eyes of a freshman me.
looking back, i remember thinking steel 5 wide c-channels were so good cause they were super strong or something.
i remember being so happy with scoring 2 cubes during skills auton and ending with a 20 combined skills score that got us in the 2nd to last slot at states.
i remember going against pigpen then literally just getting stuck the entire match
also in starstruck, at a random tourney, us and 574c met for the first time. we paired up for elims (along with 574a) then immediately lost in quarters.
we had no clue who each other were and it’s pretty cool now knowing what happens next
Well I just started vex, but unfortunately at our school we didn’t push team work, but in this turning point year i learned how to code robotc and vex pros and I would say that my builds improved quite a bit.
And our state’s bot, a really great robot but it broke the day of after 5 days of working and programming. For turning point I programmed, built, designed, scouted and did a lot, this one of the few things i could say I’m proud of for a first year. (Since the season ended I’ve built 3 more bots with v5).
Well lets just say if my team improves by the same amount we did the last few years, we’ll be winning words in no time.
But actually my first robot was so bad, like the worst robot you have ever seen
I only got the chance to play ITZ before I graduated but I can say I improved heavily. first robot could score 4 points max in a round, last robot that took to state could score about 60 points I believe by itself in one match if I was playing at my hardest.
So it begins like this:
I join a debakey high school as a freshman. We are team 7390 if I remember correctly.
Our school isn’t super great when it comes to teams: the only team or school had is the gymnastics team, so 7390 is really a club.
As you know, vex stuff is super expensive. The team only has enough money for one robot. As the freshmen team, 7390A, we use leftover parts, scrounging up whatever was left.
We also had no experience. We did not have enough motors, chains, or gears for a 4 wheeled drivebase. So we went with 3 wheels, 2 frontal powered drive wheels. One omni in the back perpendicular to the drive wheels.
We were new to this, so none of our axles had bearings, and our robot was slanted and all sorts of stuff. Surprisingly, we did better than our sister team, 7390V, and they actually had a legit robot. We would’ve scored top ten out of 30 or so teams if we hadn’t gotten screwed over by the judge. It was our first tourney. Our robot was so bad that I had to drive it because none of my team had the guts to admit it was theirs. The judge also chuckled when he sized our robot, and jokingly asked if it was under the height limit. Thing wasn’t even 5 inches tall.
Edit: I bought my own parts and most likely will go this season as an independent one man team. I’ve gotten better fortunately.
Well, we have 3 teams each of 10, but this year we had a new teacher so the councilors just added random people not caring. So I ended up doing almost everything. The x-drive went very well, we had dr4b that could stack in like 3 seconds high post and a double Catapult, the drive used 6 motors and could climb although it took too long so i swapped the internals for high speed, it used 4 encoders, 2 ultrasonic sensors, a gyro, and two potentiometers. It was an amazing bot, but it just didn’t work the day of. But building it was stressful because we qualify for states 2 weeks before, and because it was weird circumstances we didn’t know until we killed our old bot, so it was built in like a week.
My first year was VEXIQ Bankshot. I qualified for State in my first year, then I enrolled in VRC the following year playing Starstruck. Using metal parts to build robots was even more daunting because I was still new to the Vex program. Our first robot was a pushbot. We were in our first League in Eastern Washington our autonomous went under the fence. (The event partner let us get away from bring DQ only for that day) At the same day, I uploaded my first ever Vex YouTube video linked below;
Fast forward 2 years later, I built a semi-stabled robot (At the beginning of my robotics season) with rollers and a downsized puncher to fit within 18".
I hope my improvements will be enough for my team to qualify for Worlds this Tower Takeover season as this is my last chance on qualifying for Worlds. (Yes, with the help of my teammates too)
if we improve as much as from getting carried to rank 30 in state in itz to going to.1 tourney champion, 2 undefeated tourneys and then rank 1 in research. we lost to the eventual division champion by 1 point, 1 point. we could have made round robin by 1 point, bruh
just thinking about it we keep losing important matches by one point. here is our states record
we got pretty unlucky with 2 bad partners in quals ending up with a bad partner in elims. then losing by one point by a lucky double park. but smh. we didn’t even qual for worlds
dang solo teams are pretty hard, if you need any help there is obivously the forum but you can contact me on discord @cykaraptor#1085 im happy to help. gl dude
Thank you!
Speaking of which, do you happen to reside in the Houston area?
I may also see if my friends want to join as well, but they dont know too much
This is our teams 2nd year competing and our growth hasn’t slowed down much at all. We are hoping to qualify for worlds next year as that will be all the original people on the teams last year.
