My team didn’t qualify for worlds this year, but we’re going to try really hard to make it to worlds next year. Anyone have any tips?
Just work hard and try to improve upon stuff you fail at.
4 Likes
I would try scouting and start building right when that game comes out ( we are not on the same team we are sister teams)
2 Likes
Online challenges are a great way, as many teams dont bother with them so the competition isnt as fierce.
5 Likes
My advice is to make your robot adapt over the course of the season. If you have a design, and it doesn’t work the way you want it to, most of the time, consider changing the design. Or if you see a design that works better than yours does, consider changing your robots design. Efficiency is what wins matches. My team also didn’t make it to worlds this year, and we learned that we might have made it to worlds if we had adapted during the season. Good luck next year!
1 Like
As a coach, my advice to my teams is always to put your effort into the things that you can control. Build a robot with the best possible build quality. Manage your time well so that you have time for your driver to practice, and coder to tune an optimize your programs. Prioritize skills. This also means creating the best notebook possible and and practicing for interview.
You have no control over your match schedule. Scout and do your best to plan match strategy with your alliance, but don’t get upset if they do something different or matches don’t go your way. If you have already come prepared with good skills routines, an excellent notebook and ready to shine in interview, you will be in contention for judged awards, and therefore in a good position to qualify.
Skills should always be your fail-safe. If you can truly become a team with elite skills, you are much more likely to qualify. Double qualification spots are given to the highest ranked teams from skills, so even if matches don’t go your way you are still likely to qualify. Too many teams treat skills as an afterthought.
7 Likes
I would definitely recommend your engineering notebook. If you update the notebook really often in a professional and updated manner, you could have a chance to win the Design Award. And, the notebook can start as soon as the new game is revealed. I worked during my summer on my notebook to get a head start and we won the design award at every tournament/league we entered. Of course, I did more than just summer, but I would definitely recommend the notebook.
7 Likes
Also when I say the easy way I meant the easier way, my apologies, going to worlds is not an easy task period.
1 Like
2 parts
a. is making it to state
The easiest way to get in is skills, there are the most spots generally awarded to state from skills.], get good at that to qualify for state. The main thing I would focus on would be programming skills and have a drive3r run xRC at home. Try to remain as high as you can in your region as you can.
b. getting into worlds
This is harder, in our region 25% of teams make state, only 20% of that 25% make worlds. I would check your region, but I will use mine as an example because I’m used to that. But first is find a focus, see the award qualification breakdown. I like to make groups to see how they compare to each other. Where I’m from it’s
11 awards
4x tournament awards (winners/finalists)
1x robot skills
6x awards
The easiest way to go to worlds from here is a judged award. there are then a few things to focus on.
Team organization. Keep time charts, meeting minutes, Gantt charts, anything you can think of to show the judges that you are organized and professional. Don’t just start this at state, but throughout the year, it will be a lot easier, and if you do it right you may not need such a focus on skills (although I still would try because excellence and a few others want a good skills score). Also try to have a time stamp on each page.
Documentation. Take tons of photos, make lots of diagrams, make wiring and programming contracts, make build instructions. Your goal would be to have it so if someone found you nb on the ground they would fully understand the robots functionality, and would be able to build a 1:1 copy as well as code one.
Overall note booking. Find a template that works for you, I may or may not be working on something for this, but the main thing is to make it so that it makes it appear able to the judges that you more than meet the criteria in as little time. I’ve seen notebooks that purely after 5 pages you can tell it got a near perfect score. I would highly recommend using a discord for this.
Making it to worlds the easy way is very boring, but it will pay off. The main thing is to do it over the whole season. We got to one week from state and tried to double the length of our NB (we only got to 150 and we were facing 5 or 6 350+), while adding a T3, and doing more than we reasonable could do well. If we had pulled off one or the other we could have done well, but we tried to go to fast with too little acceleration and ended up failing on both. I would recommend trying for just the NB as you are more likely to qualify and even though it will be boring, worlds won’t be. Just try to stay focused and stay committed and it can happen.
3 Likes
My main advice is just make sure you essentially finish building the robot by your first competition that way you have more competitions where you can actually do well & test your robot. Also make sure you really think through your mechanism because this year I tried to do a forklift but it failed miserably and ended up being a massive waste of time because I didn’t fully think about how it would work. Teamwork is also VERY important because if you have one person doing almost everything you’re not going to get very far and be behind schedule.
1 Like
One word: Notebook
Having a notebook that is detailed, thourgh, and appealing to the judges both aesthetically and technically is very beneficial for getting to worlds, as most awards handed out that can qual you for states and worlds are heavily reliant on your notebook. Excellence, judges, ect.
Also don’t be afraid to tear your robot down and start anew. In the 23-24 season Over Under, we redesigned our robot 3 times before finally finding the right design. We started of as a defence bot, which consisted of only a four motor 100 rpm drivetrain with 5 inch wheels that took a minute to get from one side of the field to the next 
. We then continued tearing our robot down and restarting, our new designs ranging from a claw-catapult bot, to a bot with a 2 hinged plexiglass blocker arm, until we finally found a design that worked for us, and made it all the way to state elims.
I guess what i’m trying to say is sometimes starting over is the only way to improve.
I hope this helped, and best of luck on your quest to make it to worlds next year.
5 Likes
if something doesn’t work on your robot fix it as soon as you realize even if it means having too take apart some of your robot.
Fix your past mistakes. When people find ways to improve they feel better going into the next season. For me my team made it to worlds last year but not this year. (Our region got smaller.) Make sure when doing notebooking you use the engineering design process and have everyone contribute because your are a team. Take photos and make CAD’s if your really advance or just use the parts list.
Skills + notebook is your best freind. Matches are super prone to random errors and things just happen in matches that you cant account for. But Notebook and Skills are both things that you can 100% control the outcome of. So grind skills and notebook.
10 Likes
rookie numbers. in OU we built 11 or 12 robots. (this was not the strat) we once built 3 robots in 2 weeks. had alot of fun got to test a bunch of ideas but it hurt us a bit in the late season at sigs and states.
6 Likes
That is quite impressive I will admit
When we found the perfect design, we barely had any time to tune and polish it and the code before states, so I can relate. BTW, that year was my 3rd in competitive robotics, and it was the first time doing VRC for me and all my teammates, so we were new to building with metal, choosing alliance partners, and everything else that is not in IQ.
3 Likes
skills, Skills, SKILLS
2 Likes
- don’t change your bot in January.
- Auton skill score matters.
- Notebook matters.
- Have 2 different designs, if you have the parts.
3 Likes
I’ll also throw in here that if you can CAD up your robot, it helps a lot and makes a lot of difference, VEX CAD does take some time but trust me if you fully run through it in CAD it will be better.
2 Likes