I am currently competing in my 3rd year of vex. Each year I have had 3 different builders on my team. (I have always programmed and drove.) The problem is, the robot is never finished/working in time for a comp. And if it is, it isn’t 100%. I’ve decided I will fix this by taking matters into my own hands and building next year. Can anyone give me some tips, youtube channels to watch(outside of Taran and Kepler), or just some advice. Thank you!
best advice I have:
CAD your bot before you build. CAD’s a super useful tool because you can get a quick and precise model of your robot that you can easily modify and iterate upon on your own time. Then you can build from your CAD very quickly, since you shouldn’t have to make and decisions or mistakes while you build, since you already did all that during CAD.
Sounds like a time-management problem. At the start of the season, set up a plan for design, build, program, PRACTICE, etc. Stick to the plan as best as you can, which might include such things as a “design freeze” at some point. Over the years, I’ve seen many teams which might have great robots, but fumble around driving. I’ve also seen “average” robots win many competitions because of the skill of the driver(s) and quality of the programming.
My biggest advice would just be:
Emphasis on this. If you build a low-mid tier metabot, but spend the time to build it well, and make it look nice, it will often outperform a better-designed, more-jank robot. Additionally, good looks give your team an edge in alliance selections.
Build Quality is everything.
my advice-
invest some time in learning CAD. It’s an invaluable tool, in both VEX and the larger engineering world as a whole. it allows you to reiterate over and over and over again and refine and optimize your designs without physical constraints
use your time wisely. I found myself spending 40+ hours on our bot a week and still felt like I didn’t have enough time. if you’re low on ideas, watch youtube videos from other builders or ask questions on VTOW
and cheesy as it may be, make sure you’re having fun. don’t worry about winning. take vex as an opportunity to learn and grow in your skills as an engineer. few people care what skills ranking you earned or how many division championships you won after vex
Would it be appropriate to promote my teams you tube channel? A great way to get tips and tricks is to watch previous worlds video’s or competition video’s which are scattered around you tube.
No, it would not.
Completely unrelated, check out my YT page for robot videos and guides.
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Sure. Let’s go with that.
Just to clarify a little bit more on my situation. I know how to do physical parts of building such as cutting, screwing, etc. It’s more of the actual figuring out how to do something and the engineering aspect that I struggle with.
If you could specify what you want to build it could help us assist you. To clarify what I was saying earlier. Try cadding what you want to build to get a simple picture of what you want to make. Let’s say you want to know how to make/mount intakes. You could watch multiple reveals in slo-mo to get a better idea of it. Cough cough TMayer Winter reveal. Don’t ask why I’m on VEX Forum at 9:00 o’clock in the night.
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