Ok So I came across these a while ago but didn’t give them much thought at the time I recently remember these and since people have been asking for instructions on how to get started here you go. Note: I didn’t make these, they were made by their respective owners.
Robot Recipes: A Cookbook Approach to Building with Vex
Occam’s Engineers '06-'07 Robot Construction Guide
Resources for Rookies
Happy VEXing:)
Very Nice
Thanks
Technic-R-C
Thanks for sharing! These are great documents. Much more useful than unhelpful and unfriendly comments like read the manual or search the forum! Thanks again. Colin.
That is as all that we can do to help others that ask for step by step instructions. Searching the forum and reading the manual are great ways to get ideas. Be imaginative and you’ll be suprised what you can make with Vex.
Technic-R-C
Excellent Resources… I hope to add to them very soon…
Oh Please - By investing time in searching the forums here and Chief Delphi, you would have found references to all of these, and more.
Investing time in effective research is time well spent. Knowledge is good. 
Blake
My comment was on behalf on newbies. I have been developing lego, vex and basic stamp robots for many years and have learned how to use forums to my benefit. This is not always true for new folks. Having been a professional computer consultant for over 35 years I have learned that what is obvious to me is not necessarily obvious to less experienced folks.
The purpose of a forum to share and help other people. I belong to quite a number of forums and all of them satisfy this need. This is also mostly true of this forum. However, there are a small number of people on this forum who seem to want to impress people with their knowledge, rather than really help people.
To me answering a post with read the manual is not particularly useful. It stops people asking for help. If you reply with a specific chapter to read in the manual or a list of good search criteria or a list of references then this is useful. Remember you were also a newbie at one point. Just my 2 cents.
I should have pointed out that my last reply was to 1885.Blake Potomac Vex League Co-Chair etc. and not Technic-R-C (whose reply I appreciated). Colin.
I read these instructions and they show you how to build basic robots that are not that complicated but some of them are good.
They are aimed at people who have problems coming up with ideas for robots no offense to anyone just think insane insane insane and the idea will eventually come.
HOW I THINK OF ROBOTS TO BUILD
If i want a battlebot
I think of the terminator. lol!
If i want something sophisticated i usually sit for a while until i have an epiphany. By the time that happens its almost midnight.
If i want a stupid robot i think…
Anything absolutely stupid.
See 3 methods to building robots lol.
Right! I use the “if at first you don’t succeed…” approach. Once I have a functional mechanism, I keep refining it until it is as simple/light as possible.
It really helps to have enough parts around to keep the current working version around while building the next “better” version. Also, the push rivets are awesome for quick (re)designing - once you get a design you want to keep, you can lock it all down with screws if necessary.
But yes, the best ideas always seem to come around midnight :rolleyes:
Cheers,
I need to order some more parts but i have no cash right now, i just spent my last money on a bran new 33 gal craftsman air compressor and some extra air tools. I needed to get that but i wish i had double the cash so i could have gotten more parts for my robots.
But yes we must agree, all the good ideas come at midnight when you can’t think straight lol!
lol my good ideas come when im lying in bed and i cant get to sleep at 2am (regularly) so i just start thinking about a good robot idea then it evolves better and better, my most recent one, a vex biped, im working on it now
Yes - And when I was a newbie, I began researching and learning. I asked people where to find the information I needed to learn. I was and am willing to go soak it in.
I did not ask other people to hand me answers as if it was their job to do my work for me.
Perhaps folks need to be eased into learning that success in high-tech fields comes from study, and not from having things handed to them; but whether they learn it slowly or through receiving a wake-up call, they do need to learn it.
I suppose that I tend toward “There is no time like the present” to learn that.
And… if I read a question that begins with “I have tried to find an answer on my own by doing ___; but I am having trouble…”; then that question gets my full and immediate attention.
The questions that imply that it is my job to do someone else’s work for them… Well, not so much.
Blake
I’ve been thinking of a design since I first cracked open the box. I still don’t know what to do. Do any of you guys build your robots in inventor first? Because if you don’t I won’t even try…there are a lot of parts to use:(
yes click on the CAD button in the top menu on this site and you can download all the vex parts, in varieties of formats, including inventor
Yea lol just last night i had some sick ideas for some robots but it was like 1am and i needed to get to sleep so i didn’t write them down. The following morning i usually forget it and sit for about 60 minutes in English class recovering the design and reassembling it in my head and then on to paper it goes.
Thats usually how my ideas are thought up, math class is usually the best lol i take any new math that we are being taught and i think of ways that it can applied to robots ie sensors strength design calculations ect. Most of the time the math is invaluable and i stow it away for later use.
Everyone that is starting out/building with vex i urge you to get the programming kit and a few sensors because you will learn a whole lot more when you have to apply math, algebra ect… To solve problems with the robot.
hmm…i wonder how many times thats happened to me… 
yes mr lucier thats why i was staring into space yesterday pr.1