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Originally Posted by ManicMechanic
We tried! We started off with a formalized plan (sign up for 2 events in our league) and lacking interest, downgraded to "anyone just come and practice and build when you can", but not a single team contacted us. I'm not even sure if those teams even still exist (though I know the 20+ kits were bought).
For a team with no FRC or even FLL precedent, there needs to be a draw that keeps the students on the team. We've had several students come and build the squarebot, then stop coming. I think the problem is that without a technical mentor and/or explicit building instructions, they don't know how to get from Point A to Point B (how do you build a manipulator, let alone attach it to a squarebot). They have no concept of a competition and how exciting it can be, so even that aspect holds no appeal.
We have one advantage over the dozen teams that we're describing, which is that one student on the team and I have extensive FLL experience and know the potential of Vex. But we still have the skills of a "pre-FRC" team, which is why detailed photos with close-ups of gearing, axels, and manipulators would be of great value to us (though we certainly don't expect it during competition season). It took 4 weeks to complete our first functional dual reduction gearing on a manipulator, and we lost several students in the process. If we had had examples to use, it would have gone more quickly, and we might have held the interest of the students.
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Much of VEX is quite difficult to learn. However, if someone spent time reading all of the manuel, and surfing around forums, asking a lot of questions, it can be done. I know this because I came into leading a VEX team not having any engineering experience. I had to learn how to build from scratch. The owner's manuel was a huge help to me.
As for pictures of VEX robots from previous years, it can be found on the vexlabs site and several other sites.
Also, I don't know how you managed to raise money to buy 20+ kits, but good job on that. However, I don't think building 20 competition robots is very effective in terms of interest and inspiration. I found that there is usually only a handful of students in a school willing to dedicate their time and effort into building a robot. It's much better to have 1-5 robots, with the students involved working as a team, than 20 individual robots.
Cheers,
FIG