Introduction to Robotics

First of all, welcome.

Robotics is hard work. Reading these documents will give you a basis for understanding many of the things you will need to know. Like anything else, they are useless without application, and can only be refined with practice. With that said: nothing ever turns out how it is supposed to. This line carries so much weight the more you delve into robotics. I hope you’ll never have to experience the full burden of that phrase. In fact, no one should. That’s why you have a team.

My first year in robotics, I was placed on a team with new and old friends. Our only downside was that we were new to everything. We had no seniors on our team, so we looked to seniors on other teams for guidance. Even though we learned much from them, we had to teach ourselves many of the things that would become beneficial to us. Our first year, we only went to 3 tournaments and our highest ranking was 22nd place. But, we considered this a success because we were able to build and program a working robot that completed the task at hand--albeit not very well. Our second year we won a tournament, qualifying for states and nationals. I write this now, looking into my third season and back at my first two, and realize that we became what freshman us needed to look up to and learn from. So, my friends and I have compiled our knowledge into these documents for you and any other newcomers who need this information.

-- Julian Cooper Leader and Lead Builder of 53E, Class of 2022