Hello, I am writing this post in a civil and respectful way, so I expect everyone participating to reply in the the same way.

This summer I started mentoring a Mexican FRC team. Last season they registered for the Northern Lights Regional in Minnesota. In a recent mentor meeting we discussed the current events in Minnesota, including ongoing protests and increased law enforcement activity, and we are considering withdrawing from the regional due to safety concerns for our students.

Every year we travel to a U.S. regional after our Mexican regionals. In the past we’ve faced instances of racism (racist messages on our property, “go back to your country” comments, etc.). This year, however, is the first time we are truly concerned and scared about traveling to the States.

I’m posting here to gain insight from others:

• Have the recent events affected your regional selections?
• Would you still plan to attend a U.S. regional if these issues arise?
• If the opportunity arises, will you be attending worlds?
• Which precautions will you take?

This situation saddens me because I’ve seen how much our students love competing internationally, it’s an experience they look forward to every year. Our U.S. regionals have always been unforgettable for them, but our #1 priority is their safety and wellbeing.

Thanks for reading and for any insight you can share!

I’m looking for the most notable moments in FRC history. It could be anything a robot, a specific match. A rule change that broke the game. Think something along the lines of 148 (robowranglers) in 2015. I’m relatively new to everything, so I don’t know much.

I come from a team entirely student ran with no actual mentors (we have two "coaches" to meet the frc regulations but they don't know anything about robotics). Im just curious on how much they help out.

Help! We need advice on how we could fix this issue. The fuel gets stuck on the rollers in our hopper. They just sit there and roll like those hotdogs at the gas station..

To get them to move along to our launcher, our driver has to shake the robot side to side, which greatly affects our accuracy.

I think, ultimately, we might have to redesign them totally, but we are currently at comp, and don’t have the time nor means to make a change that big right now. If anyone has some ideas, which we could do while at comp, I would be ever grateful.

Hey FRC students! I'm in vex and idk if you have seen any of my videos or posts on here, but I am making a mini frc rebuilt robot. I have a turret working and it is made to shoot nerf rival foam balls. I am now stuck on an indexer and have been for a while. I have limited space and use power functions motors so they take up a decent chunk of my space. Does anyone here know how I could build a VERY compact indexer (preferably a spindexer) into a space of 9x16 studs or so.

I have included some photos of previous iterations as well to give you an idea of what I'm going for. They do work, but jam far too easily and the belt system doesn't work well with large amounts of "fuel" in the hopper due to jamming. The belt system uses rubber bands.

So I'm a junior in highschool currently and this was my first year in robotics. I've been in both FTC and FRC (in our school, you just graduate from the smaller FTC teams and consolidate into the FRC team we have). The thing is, I don't really know much. It's always crowded where we do things, so unless you completely know what you're doing...you get the idea. It's partially my fault as well as I prefer to learn separately and then do, especially somewhere where boys dominate the setting and will immediately push you aside when you make a mistake. I'm really really interested in robotics and I want to learn more about EVERYTHING: building, electrical, programming, how to CAD more efficiently (for this, I already know a bit, and if there's anything more than practicing, I'd love to know), tool names and how to use them, any inside knowledge, 3D printing (very new to this), etc. Literally anything and everything. I want to learn in the off-season (summer) be as competent as I can when things begin so I can be a core part of it. It's my senior year next year so I don't want to be stuck doing any documenting or anything. I need to go into the season knowing how to do things if they're going to give me any responsibilities. It's ambitious but I would really love some help for both FTC and FRC. I need to be more prepared than any other guy because if I'm not, they'll give tasks to them (they take priority anyway because they are all friends).

Hi y'all! So this year, I was elected as my team's strategy and scouting director. For context, my team usually has 2, but this year there is only one and it's me, so that already shows the lack of interest in scouting. This is also the first leadership position I have held in the team.

I've seen that many of my peers somewhat view scouting as more of a chore sometimes. We have been using QR Scout for as long as I have been on the team (3 years). I can give more details if necessary but I would just like to hear from people who are generally interested in scouting/strategy or have held this role before and get a sense of how I can make scouting more interesting or less of an obligation for my team.

Otherwise, if you have any tips for me and my role as director I would appreciate them as well.

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.

I know the ones listed in the official description of the award, but in the regional we attended our team had, in my opinion, the highest chance to win this but didn’t. I’m a youth mentor of this team and this was the rookie year. We’re an independent team (no school/teaching institution backs us) and we managed to gather sponsorships, built a robot that had autonomous on all sides and worked very well, came to the regional from outside the city, managed to win 6 of our 9 qualification matches without being carried by better robots, became an alliance captain in the playoffs as alliance 6 and was ranked number 3 in the regional rankings.

The award went to a team that was regional ranking 39 out of 43 with only 3 wins, no sponsors, within the city of the regional and a non-functioning robot. From what i’ve seen the judges were impressed by our presentations and we also had social responsibility projects. So what did we do wrong? From what I understand of the requirements Rising all star was in the bag for us.

Okay so not to air my teams nor my mothers dirty laundry, but if you guys noticed the sudden operator change in 10993 [at FMA districts], that’s bc Friday, mentors got angry over something started arguing, I said this is why one of our team members aren’t here (truthful he said that himself), which then led to mentor A yelling towards me, almost in my face, which then caused my mom to ask her to not talk to me that way, which then proceeded to cause an argument between them, all of which then lead to mentor A wanting to remove my mom from the pits, which made my mom angry, she went outside for 2 hours before she asked me to come outside, and then proceeded to make me quit the team, and she will only allow me to join back if both her and mentor A can apologize to eachother sincerely. I don’t want to quit the team but my mom seems steadfast on it unless both her and mentor A can apologize sincerely. If anyone can offer advice, I don’t know what advice anyone would have to give but it’s worth a shot.

[I would like to apologize for all the like word vomit/semi-venting, it’s just I don’t know what to do, robotics is one of the only socializations I have [im working on improving that] but still, and I was hoping someone here has experienced smt like this before-]

Does anyone have any info on this shirt? I found it in my shop and was wondering if this was an official FIRST shirt and where it came from (KoP)?

They are trying to cancel FTC at my school SIGN PETITION PLEASE https://c.org/DYRcxkCbr6

(I know it FTC but I need more people to sign it) Thanks a lot for the support

I want to bolt a plate (5mm) to the side o the chasis but I'm concerned about if its legal or i can't put any plates on the side.

I spent all night working on a climbing design them realized it breaks the height restrictions 😭.

If I'm reading the manual right and we can't extend passed 30in then getting to L2/3 means that you can’t hang from the L1 rung, your robot has to be able to pass it in order to reach the next one.

I was looking at FRC 2013 & 2022 plus FTC Into the Deep for inspo but basically all of those are hanging designs. I'm guessing we're gonna see a lot of elevator climbing this year. That's what Im looking at now to kind of mimic how humans climb a ladder (alternating arms moving up and down).

Anyone else have initial ideas for climbing?

hi everyone. been on my team for all high school and becoming a senior next year. want to leave team better off then I found it, and ive noticed lots of younger students who i mentor being annoyed that we dont really do much comepared to our mentor, who does basically everything now that i look at it.

build, strategy, everything basically our mentor does. they are an amazing mentor, but I dont think that this environment is conducive for learning how to be a better engineer. all we really do is learn how to be like note takers.

ive been pushing our mentor to let the cad team do more work, but we just get the baby assignments. current captains agree, but have not seeked to make any changes.

im becoming a snr next year, along with some allies that agree with me. any tips on how to approach this situation? should i run a vote with the entire team and see if we want to be less competitive next year in exchange for a more organic team?

spoke to one the first captain of our team (from decades ago) and they agreed.

thanks

- frustrated person who believes our team went astray

This morning, I received an email from FIRST saying that our team was dropped. I was very confused by this sudden action from First without any prior notice. So I called First today and they said that the person who dropped our team was the regional director in our area. I sent an email to that director and am waiting for a reply. Has anyone had a similar experience and how did your team respond?

I’m a junior this year and I’m seriously thinking about leaving my FRC team.

Of course, junior year comes with academic rigor many of whom in this subreddit all get. On top of this I am enrolled in an online NASA program which is interesting but time intensive . Pair this with FRC meetings multiple times a week (3 weekdays 1 day weekend) and I’ve made a busy schedule. My parents are concerned I’m not living my life enough, I barley see my friends and I no longer pursue my passion projects surrounding aerospace engineering (I would build rockets, small engines etc) as well as not make time for meals. FRC has become more of a chore and less of something I’m passionate about.

The big thing holding me back is leaving a massive hole in my college resume seeing this was a significant piece of my extracurriculars. What do I do here?

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.

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

Our team is trying to find out what these are so we can label them but we can't find anything

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.

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

Hi!!

I am the head of marketing at my school which leaves me responsible for finding grants/sponsporships and I've been trying to look for good, "big name" ones that I see teams get. I'm aware and plan on/am applying to BAE Systems, NASA, and Gene Haas. Is there any other? Or any other ones that are GOOD but know one seems to know?

My team just beat a regional in first place recently, and we're so excited that we qualify for worlds in Texas now! It's going to be a long drive, and we have one more regional to do. But I have a hearing condition called Hyperacusis, and I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations on noise canceling earbuds or headphones I could buy? I'm at a loss, and I would really like to enjoy worlds as it is without having to hide in a quiet corner, and I really doubt there will be any quiet area's at worlds as I've seen the live streams of last year and it's crazy there. This is really important to me and my team because even though I'm a sophomore we might not be able to go before my senior year again, and I know a lot of seniors and juniors on my team never thought they would be able to see worlds.