That is one of the best quotes I have every heard of in my life. don’t quit. Like what @Connor said. You are always going to have bad years and good years. You should just keep on trucking and never give up. Things will get better. It is called perseverance
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Yeah bro, quitting is not the answer. I’ve never had this experience as a 2nd year MS VRC student, but I can imagine it. Your teammates might not work with you or want this, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Make friends with teams at the competitions you go to, get connections, and just keep trying. Like @RNA said, it’s the perseverance that counts. If you quit, in a few years you will be looking at the kids that you used to be and regret quitting, even if it’s hard now. Push through this year and crush the next, you got it man!
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Yeah, I was sort of in the same boat last year. My team was never there and did nothing. We had funding but I made LOTS of rookie mistakes just ask @squiddy_slapper and @JustARedneckEngineer. I sucked. We placed low a lot of times and I lost some friends. A lot of robotics kid dream about robotics since it is so fun to do. If you keep on trucking it will get better. This year my team is still never there but I just know that it will get better. Talk to your parents and get their support. Everybody in you family and your friends support you and will help you no matter what. Hang in there. *Insert that cat hanging on something
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Okay, I dont think that’s something you should post here.
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Admins finna get you
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There you go.
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THERE WE GO much better and family friendly
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But honestly, I understand. My freshman year was a team of 8 people that both didn’t do anything and wanted me to change designs every week. The year after that (when I did have dedicated teammates), my team went to state. If you can get out of the team you’re on and take more leadership, do it. If not, just bear through it. The more years you have in VEX, the more responsibility you get. It’s totally worth it when you do something awesome.
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Thank you so much for all of your responses. I have decided to keep doing VEX, and tough it out, like you said. It’s really something I enjoy, and I’ve decided that it’s worth it. I’ll try all of the things you guys have suggested, and hope for the best. It’s nice to know that I have such an awesome forum to back me. Thank you all again!
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Yeah, just keep on pushing and you will see the light at the end of the tunnel. My quote- “The past is history, the future is opportunity.”
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I hate to be that one more guy, but I feel like I have a little to say here.
Those one-man team threads are actually very relevant to this topic. I’d definitely check those out. I’ve posted there’s, so I’ll try not to repeat myself.
My experience
Welcome to robotics. It’s hard. As a certain other league would put it, it’s the hardest fun you’ll ever have. And I’ve had that hit me over the head repeatedly.
So, yeah. It’s tough. And I’ve kinda been there. (But we all have slightly different experiences.):
I am a pretty new organization. We just barely started as MS teams in ITZ, and failed miserably. Then in TP, we did slightly better, but still overall failed miserably. But my personal failures felt very different.
I reached out to here early in TP. I started by just reading everything until I got some sort of an idea as to what I was doing, then I finally made an account and started helping others.
From there, I kind of got a reputation as that guy who thinks he knows a lot but actually sucks. And it was (and still is) very true. A lot of my knowledge is theoretical. I come off as if I think I know what I’m doing, but, as a quick glance at my Vexdb page would show, I actually suck. Badly.
But I’m still standing. From the beginning, I’ve been very central to our (new) organization. It started as just being the guy with all the crazy ideas (where my name came from, in junction with my bad robots) who people might come to for quick fixes and help. I thought I knew enough. But I knew nothing. (But, then again, quantity of knowledge is relative and very subjective.)
So, I was just our organization flagship student. We won a Teamowrk award at our first competition with what I like to think was because of my influences on each and every member of our (small) organization. But, I kinda now see that it was a pity award. But it’s still our most prized piece in our trophy cabinet. (Partially because it’s the only one there so far.) And it’s our most prized because we did that. (Though it was awarded to our A team, who I let have the letter while I took B, which just had more character to it in my opinion. But I still like to think that I did most of the work to achieve it. Even though it’s a teamwork trophy. You get what I’m saying.)
Later, I came to realize that I needed to just know more to be competitive. In TP, I read absolutely everything I could find. Whether or not I understood it completely. I taught myself the logic behind PID, coding concepts, build concepts, all kinds of stuff. I just built up my theoretical knowledge.
But I still couldn’t win anything. sometimes I blamed it on bad luck. Most of the time it was my bad driving or abysmal build quality.
But I was still central to our organization. Although at this time it was growing, and I had much less connections with the new MS teams, though I do like to think I made myself useful during competitions or whatever events we had together.
Through both of these seasons, I was effectively a one-man team. It was just that nobody could match up to what I could do, so I did it effectively alone. I get into these parts a lot in those other threads, so I’ll (reluctantly) omit much of that here.
I did go a little crazy over the years. So much was on me. I knew more (about Vex) than anybody else closeby (including my mentor). And that’s not just me feeding into a team-name stereotype persona. (The team name persona was based off of me, and I like to think that it’s growing with me.)
This season/moving forward
Already, I’ve helped (one might argue carried) a sister team to Finals in our first (and so far only) event. I could do that both with the help of my outreach (which allowed the SCA to come into being, which is always a huge help to its members, including the founders), as well as my determination (one could argue stubbornness).
But I don’t intend to just stop here, and say that I’ve done enough. I’m not quite done yet. While event judges don’t really recognize all that I do (or don’t appreciate it because it goes counter to the teamwork philosophy they’ve all had implanted into their brains for award rubrics), I’m still here doing it.
I’ve been recognized a total of one (arguably 2-3, but I don’t really count those in this category) time for my contributions here. It’s kind of how I feel towards judges who might just not know what it is I do and how much time I put in, but that’s not on them, and those who do win these awards do deserve them.
But I don’t strive for recognition (though that would be nice, people!), I instead strive for legacy. For improving what I found, be it in my local school team or a wider community.
Unfortunately, I do think that this will be my final go-round. Not because I graduated or gave up, but because I just have to move on. In my wake, I do hope to leave my organization better equipped to function without me.
Though I’ll be gone, I do hope that what I do is felt. That I don’t just vanish as another wanna-be, non-competitive team who is just pretentious and thinks he knows more than he does.
In particular, I tried to build up a small network to be my on-site team so I can still compete, even though I’m gone. But I don’t see that holding up. Instead, I’m hoping to give valuable experience to others that they can pass on to their teams, and which will hopefully grow and create a prosperous orgnianization, long after I’m personally gone.
So, I don’t have myself a strong 8059 organization with the self-structure and internal support necessary to have manny competitive teams. I don’t have a 929 level of build training for younger members.
No, I’m on my own. But it is great to have progressed far enough that I have help in this.
I’ll stop rambling (pm me if you want more information, I’m just trying to save the time of others). I just want to leave you all with one thing:
We do not do these things (Vex, robotics, anything) because they are easy, but rather because they are hard. We don’t give up because something is difficult. This is a jungle of obstacles to overcome, and (while robotics is enjoyable) it’s not all fun and games.
Others may have their paths cleared before them. The powerhouses in your region, for example, have most likely been long-established organizations who started similarly to how you or I did. They have paved paths and lightly wooded areas. We have a jungle. But don’t flee becasue it’s difficult.
No, embrace it. Allow yourself to Build what you stand for.
Welcome… to your jungle.
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If you are reading this. My only thing to say is dont stop. From what I saw in the beginning you loved it. Imagine all the memories you made and so on. Its normal as most said on this thread and if you want to fix things you should consider talking to your couch and removing them from the team and get better teammates and also find some sponsors to help with the school funding. You can also get the school to maybe give you more money. For my team we are funding by sponsors and people helping out. You can do it 
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Try to set up over the summer and learn from your past experience and other robots. If you team has no time for robotics then talk to them, Fully explain that your team is struggling and that if they want to do good. They have to balance what they are doing. Also talk to your coach and parents. My mom has helped me for two years of bad teams and terrible times. If you need anything about robotics, team related, or other reasons. Just email me because I have lots of experience with wanting to quit VEX. Good luck, Everybody is cheering for you including Drow.
Butter is tasty without bread.
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there isnt really a topic no more because @ssang said she would keep doing vex
this topic will get locked really soon anyway because its already really off topic
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I don’t believe this should be the solution.
Just because several forum users constantly break forum rules and couldn’t keep themselves from posting off-topic, it doesn’t mean everybody else should suffer.
If this thread gets moderator attention, I think, the best solution would be to go back several days and delete every off-topic message, including mine.
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I agree with @Doctortictac on this one, because Ssang has already mentioned to continue Vex, so debating this issue will be pointless.
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