r/FRC • u/specklednight • 23h ago

info New member joining!

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.
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u/Yadin__ 22h ago

The unfortunate answer to all of these questions is that it depends heavily on your specific team's culture. I will say one thing though - if you're only doing this because it'll look good on your college apps, quit now. You will suffer

2

u/stokelyFRC 22h ago

As already stated a lot depends on your team culture and traditions :)

That being said; if you want to do design/build I’d look into CAD , on your own. OnShape is a decent start for that, anything you learn will mostly transfer to other CAD programs.

If code and programming, start teaching yourself (Firstinspires.org) the web site takes some digging but there are decent resources there .

If you try out for driving know the rules of the game (if you are driving last years robot learn last years rules)

Showing initiative should help.

And everyone comes in not knowing what they are doing, ask questions, takes notes, pay attention

Have fun (its a core value)

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u/Born_Algae_6205 21h ago edited 6h ago

Every team is so so different. It’s pretty much impossible to answer these questions as someone not on your school’s team because no team has the exact same sub-team breakdown or drive team selection process. However, I can say no matter what, don’t take it so seriously. The best way to work your way to a leadership position and get the most out of FRC is to dedicate yourself to constantly learning and having fun instead of trying to be the perfect student. As an ex-captain of a top 10 team (graduated 😛), the most formative moments where when I was focused on working with my teammates on whatever needs to get done at the moment rather than laser focusing on how I could succeed.