The Design Process

Building an FRC robot isn't just "think of something cool and build it." There's a process that competitive teams follow, and it exists because it works. Skipping steps or doing them out of order is how you end up three weeks into build season with a half-built mechanism that doesn't solve the right problem.

This section walks through that process from start to finish:

• Strategy to Mechanism covers how to analyze a game and turn strategic priorities into mechanism choices. This is where most of the important decisions happen.

• The Build Season Calendar lays out a realistic week-by-week timeline and talks about when to stop designing and start building.

• Prototyping covers how to test ideas quickly and cheaply before committing to a full design.

• Design Reviews explains the review cycle and what to check before you cut metal.

The core idea running through all of this is that decisions made early in the process have the biggest impact on the final robot. Spending an extra day on strategy and prototyping at the start of the season is worth more than an extra day of build time at the end. Teams that rush past the design phase almost always end up rebuilding something at competition.