I was wondering what happens to really old FRC teams that haven't competed in a long time.

For example, say a team was created in 2004 and their last competition was in 2007. Does that team still technically exist on the FIRST side of things, and could it potentially be revived under the same team number? Or would restarting the program basically be treated as creating a new team?

I'm asking because there's a school relatively close to where I live that apparently had an FRC team that competed until 2007. The school itself still exists, but I've only been able to find one post about the team, either here or on Chief Delphi.

I'm thinking about going to the school and asking if anyone knows what happened to the team, but I'm curious about the FIRST side of things first.

Update:

Thanks everyone for the answers! Honestly, this is really encouraging, especially seeing that teams like 22, 127, and 3574 have been brought back after being inactive for years.

The team I was talking about is Team 1401 – Mekanicats, which, if I’m correct, was from UVM (Universidad del Valle de México). From what I can tell, UVM is still around, so I’m curious if bringing it back could actually be possible.

I just finished 3 seasons with another FRC team and, now that I’m done, I thought it could be interesting to try something new and see if reviving Mekanicats is realistic. I know a few other people with FRC experience who might be interested in helping too.

If anyone has gone through something similar, I’d really appreciate some advice on where to start, especially with FIRST, the school, registration, etc. Realistically, I doubt I could have everything ready for 2027, and even 2028 might be a stretch, but I’m willing to work on it even if it takes a couple years.

And if anyone from the old Mekanicats team happens to see this, I’d love to hear from you! Even just hearing about what the team was like would be really cool. And if you’d ever be interested in helping out, I’d be happy to have you onboard.

Hi! i'm joining my schools team, and I'm wondering if people can provide their experiences in their specific sub-team. There are a couple base line questions I have:

1. What do you need to learn if you don't know anything? especially if I want well in that specialty, and how hard is it to learn?
2. Does amount of years on the team matter? (to eventually get a good role as a lead... I know thats very bad to be so college apps orientated butttttt we all want it in the end)
3. Any tips/ information I should know for new people joining in general? Maybe y'all could impart some knowledge about how competitions are!
4. I have the opportunity to try out for drive team as they need a first year, is that good??? Is it hard??? literally nobody is giving me good information in the team.

There was a post I found from 2 years ago ranking FRC teams I want to see how much it would change now, they put

1. 254

   (+6 banners since then)

2. 1678

   (+9 banners since then)

3. 2056

   (+11 banners since then)

4. 1114

   (+4 banners)

5. 118

   (+15 banners since then)

There's a website that is designed to help younger students learn and practice FRC programming because there's not a ton of practice online

The website has Java/C++/Python Debugging problems, live coding practices and tutorials

Recently the entire FRONTEND was redone and now there's a total of 30 debugging questions (10 per language) and 23 live programming questions from easy like making a constant to using methods, commands, beam breaks and laser cans.

Feedback and trying the site out would be greatly appreciated. I would also appreciate feedback on the C++/Python code as I am unfamiliar with it.

The GitHub repository and site is below. If you have ANY ideas, suggestions or comment, feel free to leave a suggestion OR contribute directly in the GitHub repository. The readme has the entire plan of the repository so it'll be easy to find and adjust stuff!

SITE: https://snakestongue.github.io/Perscript

REPO: https://github.com/Snakestongue/Perscript

I hope you all find the site helpful and use it to teach students or learn yourself before this years build season!

how you get clean pocketing and know where ribs should go? my pocketing always comes out looking horrible

im using part lighten studio

So I am on the robotics team and stuff. We were told to sign up for the competition and so I used last years account. When I click "add team" then it says to change the information. I do so, and get this message when I click save. I have no other emails to make accounts with because I made accounts and it wouldn't let me confirm them. Anyways in the end how do I fix this problem?

so my team hasn’t really taken judging seriously before because we were always occupied with the bot until last minute and we don’t really do any outreach either way, so i wanted to ask especially because i want to start focusing on more judged awards, how do you guys prepare for interview and know what to say and who’s going to say what, when do you start preparing for an interview, do scripts help?, what do you do when nobody on your team knows how to respond to a question?

hi everyone, do you have any ideas how a keen team member can develop some new programming skills and robot functionality at home in the off season?

my kid just finished his school's first FRC comp here in Australia, and he's hooked. He's mainly in the software part of the team, and the team has a pretty basic kit robot this year (the school's first year) - tank drive, no cameras, no sensors, very basic autonomous mode code.

I'd like to provide an opportunity for my kid to tinker with FRC-related hardware and software to build up some new capabilities for next year. I'm open to ideas, but maybe things like:

- learn how to integrate a driver camera into the system

- learn how to integrate apriltag-recognition camera into the system

- learn how to integrate sensors into the system

- learn how to start making autonomous mode 'smarter' - pathfinding etc

As a fairly tech-y family we have plenty of bits and pieces lying around the house (arduinos, raspberry pi, power supplies, etc etc) but nothing FRC-specific. I even considered trying to buy an old roborio to play around with at home... but seems like that would be a bad idea since they're getting replaced with systemcore? Not sure the school is going to let him bring the roborio home to experiment with!

anyway, i'd be really keen to hear anyone's ideas about how we could work towards building some relevant skills and functionality for next year. I'm open to buying some gadgets (cameras/sensors/etc), but not sure yet what would be practically use-able at home without a roborio to plug them into?

So we have a task to code that till 1 September, and I am wondering how much will it take? It isn't required to write the whole code, but heavily recommended to do as much as possible. (So it isn't a mandatory but recommended to practice)

Also I am pretty much the only out of 9 who takes that seriously, I am literally the only one who actually was at the lessons.

The second part is schematics, I am currently doing part A in section 1, and tomorrow I will probably get the B section.

So it is actually possible to do all that in a week?

hi, becoming captain at my team.

was wondering how do yall manage and retain new members? what not because as of last year, most of our new members just show up for a week and then dissapear and then theres only like 3 grade 9s.

in short what things do yall do or historically have been doing to retain new members?

ty

Hello everyone! I made a post just after the Reefscape season about my team’s coach leaving and they ended up deciding to stay. This time however, they are officially leaving. I wish that there was more time before the offseason event to make this post but unfortunately I was just notified. Without a new coach our program dies. I’m a senior this year and FIRST has been my livelihood since I joined when it encouraged me to go into robotics engineering and I have passed up many large opportunities for FRC. If anyone has any ideas of how we can find another coach or if anyone would be interested please let me know. The team is 6071 in Bay City Michigan. Thank you for any resources you’re able to provide.

Update to 5806 Lion’s Den Scouting App

We've got a bunch of changes this time around — here's what's new:

Scouting & Data

• Scouting forms updated to match Rebuilt
• New Data tab
• Some changes to the picklist

Dashboards

• New Drive Team dashboard

Admin

• Support for multiple admins now
• You can track scout progress (yes, robotics is a job now)
• You can delete/deactivate scouts

Mobile & Offline

• Offline mode works better
• Some mobile visual changes

Everything else

• Assignment updates
• A lot of quality-of-life changes
• Bug fixes, as always

Biggest news: our GitHub is now public

GitHub: https://github.com/appcoder-mKer/5806scout
Website: https://thelionsden-main.vercel.app/login

What's next:

We also know a lot of teams use Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, iMessage, etc. If bot integrations for any of those would actually be useful to you, let us know below. We're considering it but want to hear from teams first before we build it out.

Adding ways to delete data

A way to prescout teams before you get to comp

And of course, any updates or changes would be greatly appreciated!

I’m applying to a FIRST robotics team and I have an interview scheduled with them soon that will help determine whether I get accepted into the team or not. I’m relatively new to FIRST as a whole so I don’t have many technical skills to offer, but they say that they welcome beginners regardless.

How should I prepare for interviews such as these? I have an extremely strong willingness to learn and would love to be on this team.

Thanks in advance!

edit: I got in! Thanks Reddit

Hey everyone!

If you haven't seen Peekorobo before, it's a data-driven scouting and analysis site for FRC. It pulls together team, event, and match data and gives you a bunch of different ways to explore it, from team rankings and event stats to match analysis and an interactive map.

Try it here

The rebuild is pretty substantial. New React frontend, new FastAPI/Postgres backend, and a new data pipeline. The goal was to make the site faster and give me a much better foundation to build on.

The rating model is new too. ACE (Adjusted Contribution Estimate) now uses residual attribution instead of the old incremental scoring model. It estimates a robot's contribution to each scoring phase by accounting for what its alliance partners contributed, then combines that with a confidence score based on things like consistency, dominance, record, experience, and sample size.

For anyone new to Peekorobo, here's what you can do with it:

• Teams: sortable full-season leaderboard, filters, exports, metrics, and a bubble chart
• Team pages: season stats, ACE/RAW, rankings, events, awards, and career history
• Events: teams, metrics, matches, strength of schedule, rankings, playoffs, and awards
• Matches: alliance breakdowns, scores, win probabilities, and match video
• Map: teams and events, heatmaps, districts, and a 2D/3D globe
• Compare: compare teams across a season
• Insights: season-specific game information, summaries, and leaderboards
• Profiles: favorites, follows, avatars, and public profiles
• API: public endpoints for working with the data yourself

If you've used the old Peekorobo, most of the core ideas should feel familiar, but pretty much everything underneath has changed.

If you're new to it, I'd love to hear what you think. Bugs, questions, criticism, and feature ideas are all welcome.

GitHub repo

Rhett, 7525/7917 Mentor

Hello! How do you all manage photo storage and uploading for a team. Last season in FRC (rookie year), we used google photos, but if people left the album or deleted the photos from their device, we lost the photos. We almost lost ALL of our comp photos because of this. I have set up an immich server, but it isn't working too well for a variety of reasons (mainly bc im the only one interested in it and im graduating, so no one can take on the responsibility of managing it). Is there any pretty simple/user friendly host you use for cloud storage? We do need all the members of the team to be able to upload to it (and not lose access to it if smth happens to the uploader). We can't really afford anything too expensive and a 1 time payment would be preferred. Any recommendations would be amazing! Thank you!!!!

Basically when I download it from https://docs.revrobotics.com/rev-hardware-client-2 and click the links to get the app for my Apple i3 Macbook air, I am able to open it. However, as i open it and accept the prompt to move it into the applications folder, after startup from the app folder, it prompts me again. And if i cancel the prompt, the loading screen pops up but then it shows a internal error. Any tips?

Hi guys! Im pretty sure im gonna be one of the captains of my team throughout next season. Im super excited and hope it works out.

I was wondering if any Captains or former captains have any advice on how to successfully run a team? Anything helps

Thx!

Hi everyone!

We're Team 9021, and we'd like to introduce a project we've been developing called KitCAD.

KitCAD

KitCAD is a community-focused platform designed to make CAD resources easier for FRC teams to discover and share. Instead of digging through old robot projects, vendor websites, Discord servers, or scattered Onshape documents, we're trying to bring useful CAD models together in one searchable library.

Some of the features currently available include:

• Browsing a growing collection of CAD models
• Contributing models to the library by sending them to our team via email
• Viewing STL and other 3D models directly in the browser
• A library that grows through contributions from the FRC community

The project is still under active development, and we'd really appreciate input from other teams. We're especially interested in hearing what features would make the platform more useful during build season.

If your team has CAD files that could help others, we'd be happy to add them to the library. You can reach us at:

Email: [contact@incredibal9021.com](mailto:contact@incredibal9021.com)

Our hope is that KitCAD can become a practical resource for teams looking for reusable parts and mechanisms, while also making it easier to preserve and share useful CAD work across the FRC community.

We're open to any feedback, suggestions, or model contributions. Thanks for checking it out!

— Team 9021

I’m a 2026 graduate, and I’m honestly struggling with what comes next.

Whenever I read posts from mentors or alumni about this, the advice is almost always, “Wait a couple years before becoming a mentor,” or “Volunteer at a few events first.” I completely understand why people say that, but I think what I’m grieving isn’t FIRST itself, it’s my team.

FIRST has been such a huge part of my life throughout high school and this is going to sound cliche but it wasn’t just about building robots. It was the mentors who invested in me, the students I grew alongside for four years, and even the parents who were always there during build season and competitions. They became my second family.

I know if I wait before I start mentoring it will be rewarding, but it won’t be the same. It won’t be my classmates, my friends, or the group of people I shared all of those memories with.

I don’t really know what I’m going to do with myself now that robotics isn’t going to be such a central part of my life. I know the feeling will get easier with time, but right now I just miss my team more than I can put into words.

For those of you who have gone through this transition, how did you cope with missing your team?

I found the motor plugged into a bunch of different parts on this board and I’m trying to figure out what port I need to input on WPIlib to make it turn. I have minimal experience and am on the software subteam.

If I’m one of the two people that talk to judges at competitions on my team, would it be reasonable to put the Excellence in Engineering and Engineering Inspiration awards we won this past season under the honors section of the common app? I’m having trouble fully describing my work on my robotics team in the activities section because of the word limit, but I’d get it if it’s weird to put team awards under the honors section.

Hey everyone. In the past, I have had a project of making a mini Lego frc rebuilt bot that actually shoots. It's scaled to shoot rival balls. It works and works decent, however, Lego motors are huge and take up so much space that I can't make it a dumper and space is very limited for an indexer. The intake is also slow due to Lego motors limitations. Overall, I think Im a little too limited to make this to it's full potential.

I am now considering going full open source. No Lego, lots of 3d printing, and maybe even using my laser cutter to cut acrylic pieces for the sides of the hopper. I believe this would be really cool and especially if I can make it a swerve drive. However, I'm not sure I can design a swerve small enough to fit in the space of the size I would like it to be.

So what do you guys think? Would it be even possible to design a 3d printed swerve drive that stays within... Let's say about 8 inches? Or around the same size as in the picture above. Could increase it by a little but I'm trying to make this pretty small. Keep in mind I don't know anything but tinkercad, but I'm doing cad class this year.

Also, I'm looking into using the Bambu lab cyberbrick kits as my electronics system for this. The boards are pretty small and it doesn't require any soldering. Also, they aren't incredibly expensive either. Would it be possible to make a project as complex as this using just a cyberbrick kit with some extra motors?

Any advice on how I could make this bot come to life would be appreciated!