Team Handbook

Welcome to the Malfunctionz.

If you’re new here, you are probably looking around at a room full of robots, wires, tools, computers, half-finished mechanisms, mysterious bins of hardware, and people using words you’ve never heard before.

That’s normal.

Nobody walks into an FRC team already knowing all of this.

The point of this handbook is to help you learn it.

So… Where Do I Start?

Start with whatever looks interesting.

Seriously.

Robotics is not one skill.

It’s a whole collection of skills that happen to come together in one machine.

You might discover that you love:

  • Programming
  • CAD
  • CNC machining
  • Laser cutting
  • 3D printing
  • Wiring
  • Mechanical design
  • Building mechanisms
  • Driving the robot
  • Strategy
  • Photography
  • Video
  • Writing
  • Fundraising
  • Talking to sponsors
  • Teaching other people

You do not have to learn all of it.

But you should try a little bit of everything before deciding what you like.

The Goal

Our goal is not just to build a robot.

The robot is the excuse.

The real goal is to learn how to look at a problem and say:

“I don’t know how to do that yet.”

…and then figure it out.

That’s engineering.

Sometimes you’ll make something and it will work perfectly.

Sometimes you’ll spend two hours building something that immediately breaks.

Sometimes the robot will do exactly what you told it to do and reveal that what you told it to do was incredibly stupid.

All of those count as progress.

Pick Something and Go

This handbook is organized around things you might actually want to do.

I Want to Program the Robot

Start with Programming.

You’ll learn how to install WPILib, get our code from GitHub, make changes, deploy them to the robot, test them, and send your work back to the team.

(Programming: ADD LINK)

I Want to Use the Laser Cutter

Start with Laser Cutter.

You’ll learn how to take a digital design, prepare it in LightBurn, set up the Thunder Nova, frame the job, and turn your design into an actual physical object.

(Laser Cutter: ADD LINK)

I Want to Use the CNC Router

Start with xsTECH Router.

You’ll learn how to take a part from CAD into CAM, generate G-code, set up the material, establish zero, and cut the part on our Tormach xsTECH.

(xsTECH Router: ADD LINK)

I Want to Design Parts

Start with CAD / Onshape.

CAD is where a lot of robot ideas become real.

You’ll learn how to model parts, assemblies, brackets, mechanisms, and eventually entire robots before we spend time and material building them.

(CAD / Onshape: ADD LINK)

I Want to 3D Print Something

Start with 3D Printing.

You’ll learn how to prepare a model, slice it, choose appropriate settings, load the printer, and turn a CAD model into a plastic part.

(3D Printing: ADD LINK)

I Want to Build Something

Then you’re in the right room.

Mechanical work can involve:

  • Measuring
  • Cutting
  • Drilling
  • Riveting
  • Bolting
  • Bearings
  • Shafts
  • Gears
  • Chains
  • Belts
  • Pneumatics
  • Motors
  • And occasionally staring at something for ten minutes while asking, “Why is this crooked?”

Use the tool pages in this handbook whenever you’re about to use a machine you haven’t used before.

If you’re unsure how to use something safely:

Stop and ask.

Nobody gets bonus points for pretending they know what they’re doing around power tools.

You Are Allowed to Be New

This one is important.

You are allowed to ask questions.

You are allowed to not know what something is.

You are allowed to ask:

“What’s a RoboRIO?”

“What’s GitHub?”

“What’s an encoder?”

“Why are there seventeen different kinds of screws in this drawer?”

“What does this button do?”

That is how this works.

Every person in the room who knows the answer once didn’t.

The fastest way to learn robotics is to be curious and willing to look slightly confused for a while.

Try Things

If you have an idea, say it.

If you want to try building something, try it.

If somebody else is already working on something interesting, ask if you can help.

If you want to learn how a tool works, ask someone to show you and then do as much of it yourself as you safely can.

Watching someone else build a robot is not nearly as useful as building one badly yourself and figuring out why it didn’t work.

Breaking Things

You will probably break something eventually.

We all do.

A 3D print will fail.

A drill bit will snap.

A piece of material will get cut wrong.

Code will crash.

A mechanism will jam.

Something will get assembled backward.

This is not a reason to hide mistakes.

If you break something or something goes wrong:

Tell somebody.

Most problems are easy to fix when we know about them.

Problems become much more interesting when someone quietly puts the broken thing back in the drawer.

Safety Beats Progress

We want you to use the tools.

We want you to build things.

We want you to experiment.

But we also want everyone to leave with approximately the same number of fingers they arrived with.

Before using a machine:

  • Read its handbook page
  • Understand how to stop it
  • Wear the required safety equipment
  • Make sure you understand the setup
  • Ask if you’re uncertain

If something looks wrong, sounds wrong, smells wrong, or simply makes you nervous:

Stop.

You can always restart a job.

Clean Up Your Mess

Building things makes messes.

That’s fine.

Leaving them for someone else is not.

When you’re finished:

  • Put tools back
  • Throw away scraps
  • Return unused hardware
  • Clean chips and sawdust
  • Coil cables
  • Put batteries where they belong
  • Leave the workspace ready for the next person

A team that spends the first twenty minutes of every meeting looking for a 7/16″ wrench is not an efficient team.

Document What You Learn

If you figure something out that wasn’t obvious, consider adding it to this handbook.

This handbook should never really be finished.

Machines change.

Software changes.

Our processes improve.

We discover better ways to do things.

The goal is to slowly move knowledge out of people’s heads and put it somewhere the next student can find it.

If you ever find yourself saying:

“Oh, you just have to know that.”

…then we probably need to write it down.

What Should I Learn First?

If this is your first week, a pretty good path is:

  1. Look around the shop.
  2. Learn the basic safety rules.
  3. Try programming the workbench.
  4. Make a simple CAD part.
  5. 3D print something.
  6. Laser cut something.
  7. Help build a mechanism.
  8. Ask lots of questions.
  9. Figure out what makes you want to come back next week.

You do not need to become an expert.

Just keep adding tools to your toolbox.

Welcome to the Team

Eventually, something interesting happens.

The robot stops looking like one impossibly complicated machine.

You start seeing:

  • motors
  • sensors
  • wires
  • code
  • brackets
  • bearings
  • gears
  • subsystems
  • problems that can be solved one at a time

And at some point, a new student will walk in, stare at all of it, and have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

Then you’ll explain something to them.

And congratulations.

You’re no longer the new kid.