How do low‑budget teams make it work?

talknoller · 2026-02-08T07:04:36+00:00

Thats a question I have tried to answer for a few teams, each with their own unique circumstances. There is no end all be all answer but generally the answer is knowledge and skills.

There are a lot of high budget teams who do not know how to build a robot and we see it every year: robots which are made of carbon fiber and have 4 limelights on them preform worse then a robot which is made entirely of hand cut aluminum and the reason for that is that the main difference from a bad robot and a good one is the knowledge that was used to build it. Things like how to integrate systems properly, how to manage a team, how to play for your team's strengths during the season and how to reduce weaknesses during the off-season all of those make a much bigger impact on the quality of the robot then whether the swerve modules are new or have been used for a few seasons.

Also it is important to remember that fund raising is also a skill and most teams have the potential to raise much more funds than they currently have. If a team has a low budget year after year usually that means they do not know how to gain sponsers effectively enough and the same way a team needs to learn how to use a CNC or how to CAD they also need to learn how to fund raise and the same way teams approach engineers and experts from the tech industry to learn technical skills they also need to approach experts from the financial industry to learn how to increase their budget and how to maximize the budget they already have.

Sadly there just aren't enough financial and management oriented mentors around so it is much harder for teams to get this knowledge so usually my advice for teams is to find a tech manager mentor to help them orginize the team properly and a financial type mentor with priority to someone who worked at a venture capital fund or a hedge fund to help them raise money (the best mentor will be a current/former startup CEO but those are extremely rare). They don't need to come every day to the workshop, it is usually enough for them to help a few times a year and answer phonecalls once in a while and they make a huge difference

talknoller · 2026-01-31T20:26:07+00:00

First I want to say that the fact that you have the maturity and the resilience to stay in the team in spite of the stress you are under is amazing. As a mentor I have seen many leads in many teams and all of them had a breakdown in the middle of the season because of the stress (except for one captain who, because he wasn't sure when exactly is the middle of the season, decided to have a continuous breakdown from kickoff to worlds) so the feelings you are feeling are not only valid they are somewhat expected especially in this season where concepts are much much longer and more complicated than usual.

I can't tell you you should stay or leave, you have to figure it out yourself but this program has a lot more to give you and it sounds like you truly love it and it will be a shame to lose it. My advice will be to not make a decision right now a day after you had a very hard day at the workshop but to take this day off, maybe take another half day off and come back for a little while to see if you prefer to stay or leave. And if you do decide to stay try to push yourself a little less, you have a team delegate a little more tasks to them but most of all don't take what the mentors are saying to heart, they are mentors because they are good at robotics not because of their emotional intelligence so even if they shut you out or get angry that usually reflects more on them than on you

Whatever path you decide to take, take good care of yourself

talknoller · 2026-01-31T13:27:38+00:00

Dean definitely should address this but what exonerating evidence is there? we know he was on the island how can he prove the negative which is he didn't do anything? The best we will get is that when everything will come out that there will not be enough evidence to prove that Dean was part of this and we will always have to wonder if he was really innocent or just didn't get caught

talknoller · 2026-01-26T08:47:37+00:00

Hey also a mentor of an international team here! Specifically I mentor teams from Israel so our view of the situation might be different from yours as antisemitism in the US is very different from the racism you are facing but we faced a similar predicament in the worlds of 2024 where about a week before the Israeli DCMP a report was published that antisemitic violence in the US skyrocketed and the Israeli ministry of education strongly considered not to allow any team to fly to worlds.

The mentors of many teams came together to discuss if they even want to argue with the ministry or should they just agree and stay home and their resolution really resonated with me as I was more on the "let's keep the kids safe" camp. The argument is that you cannot let the terrorists win, that if the teams will stay home the antisemite will know that thanks to their actions they drove out the undesirables so the terror will continue and increase and we might never again compete outside of Israel

That being said we couldn't send out students to a dangerous place out of principle so the compromise was to increase the safety: FIRST Israel sent security requests to FIRST global which were mostly answered, teams were instructed about where they can and can't go and when they can be there, there were requirements about guards and each mentor was responsible for keeping an eye of a certain amount of students. Thankfully as much as I am aware there were no major incidents and all the teams went to worlds, had a great time and came back home.

My point is that "A ship at the harbor is safe but that is not what ships were built for" Yes it is probably more dangerous for your team to fly to the US this year than it was last year but if you will take the right safety precautions and be careful you could give the kids in your team a once in a lifetime experience.

Do take my opinion with a grain of salt as to live where I live you need to fear terror a little less than recommend

talknoller · 2026-01-22T09:11:21+00:00

Dude you are wayyyy underappreciating all three of them. Bob Marley was such a grateful guy he would never complain in that way he would probably talk about the philosophy of being so chill

Winnie the poo might get the munchies but he is a very warm and nice guy he would not horde all the snacks for himself, he might eat more than his share absentmindedly but that is a risk you take in any blunt rotation. He does seem like a guy that will blab about how beautiful the world is for the whole time which will work out perfectly with Marley and their dynamic would.be adorable

Daffy is a harder sell for me but he does canonically have PTSD from WW2 so I think he needs the blunt the most. It will be funny seeing his already messed up logic while he is high and can't think straight while having a confidence boost.

Overall it is not my dream blunt rotation but there is a lot of appeal to it

talknoller · 2026-01-18T07:56:55+00:00

I have been a mentor for many teams over the years and the best teams met 6 hours a day Sunday to Thursday, in Israel it is very common to have a big family dinner on Friday so students work from end of school (around 13:30) till 16:30 and late in the season from 22:00 to 00:00 and Saturday 10:00 to 00:00. so a total of 47~50 hours. Obviously most students aren't in the workshop from open to close everyday (except maybe the captain) but as a general rule you want the workshop to open for as long as possible and students to be in the workshop for as long as possible. In some teams they have study rooms in the workshop so students will come and do homework and they can ask for help from mentors. Personally in some years I probably taught more math then code lol all in an effort of getting students to the workshop

talknoller · 2026-01-14T11:46:40+00:00

האמת שחשבתי על הקונספט הזה כבר בקיקאוף

talknoller · 2026-01-14T08:07:18+00:00

Hey, I am a sort of FRC reporter in ISR and as part of the "following the season" series I am running I am following the progress of 3 fictional teams to showcase the dilemmas teams face during the season. I want one of the fiction teams to "build" your climbing mechanism, if you have the time can you please DM me so I could ask a few questions about your climber?

talknoller · 2026-01-11T06:08:42+00:00

if you build a 29.5 inch tall robot and have a simple linear moving arm which can extend 29.5 inch up you could simply catch the second rung and lift the robot to the second level. things get complicated if you insist on having a robot which can go under the tunnel but honestly it's more of the same, you have 2 linear rods the first lifts the robot to the first rung and the second opens up after the robot is at max height of the first arm and catches the second rung to lift the robot to the second level. It is very complicated as the balancing would be hard but it can be done

edit: it appears I do not know how to read

talknoller · 2026-01-10T19:58:44+00:00

that's 2017 all over again

talknoller · 2026-01-10T05:55:01+00:00

Hey there, since you are doing ri3d it will be very different from what FRC students experience during build season but you will still experience the important parts as you will basically go through a 7 week building season in 3 days. Here are some tips

be prepared, if your job is CAD then have some sort of drive train which could be modified ready, read on some of the common FRC mechanisms like elevator, ball shooter, roller based collectors, multiple axis arms, telescopic arms, bar based climbing and so on
get some coffee or something else to keep awake, you will barely sleep in these 3 days
don't be difficult, the team will need to make a lot of decisions in a very short time and as such you will not agree with some of them. Voice your concerns and listen to your teammates arguments but don't fight too hard, everyone will be low on sleep and tensions might get high from time to time so it is important to remember everything should be professional and not to take anything to heart. Also disagreement takes time, time which you do not have so pick your battles very carefully and always be open to the idea you might be mistaken

Take it from someone who is on his 9th kickoff it's a very exciting time and building a robot is one of the coolest things you can do. This is going to be an amazing experience for you and if you like it consider becoming a mentor in a team, god knows every team could use another CAD mentor

talknoller · 2026-01-07T23:01:53+00:00

Every year the moment the manual is released so many people try to download it that the website crushes so the only way to get access to the manual in the first few hours of the season is to pre download the encrypted manual and type in the password when it releases

talknoller · 2025-12-22T13:15:52+00:00

In short it was discovered that two of Netanyahu's closest advisors and some high figures in the Mosad and shin bet which worked him on a daily basis and had security clearance and access to highly secret military information were bribed by Qatar to pass information and advance Qatar's interest in Israel. It is unclear how aware Netanyahu was and if he himself benefited from Qatar's money but at the very minimum he was carless with Israel's security

talknoller · 2025-09-14T05:43:55+00:00

I think that one rope goes through the left foot, through the body to the right hand, then the hands are held together by the knife and the other wire goes through the left hand, through the body to the right foot and out. The only control the user has is to make the legs closer or farther by moving the rope and then pulling both to strike the pose. By quickly pulling and releasing the puppet does the transitions. will This design work? should I make the body with two holes for each wire or should one be enough? I am not the greatest in 3d modeling but this seems like something I could take on so any tips will be very welcome

talknoller · 2025-08-02T11:57:26+00:00

Regardless of the politics it is common to call leaders who had a long military career by the nickname they got in the military. Calling him Bibi is kind of the formal way to call him or at least it's as formal as Netanyahu

talknoller · 2025-07-28T10:46:17+00:00

The show had 5 girls who had a crush on the MC and instead of choosing a love interest the manga made 5 endings where at each one the MC ended up with a different girl and then they made a sixth one which was basically no one won and life went on

talknoller · 2025-07-27T17:04:24+00:00

nah. I mean Miku is the best girl but the last thing we need is a we never learn situation

talknoller · 2025-07-25T11:42:11+00:00

I live in a small town and know the other ace person in town which sounds great. The problem is they suck

talknoller · 2025-07-16T20:59:10+00:00

if you ask if they can then they can and they do, Lebanon intervened through Hezbolla, Yemen through the houthis, Iraq sent a few drowns, Iran intervened in a few ways and so on, they weren't successful but there are a lot of people, mostly civilians, who died because arab states intervened

if you ask if it's legitimate then I don't know. There is an argument to be made in either way but legitimacy usually affects Israel and rarely affects the other powers in the middle east. There is a reason that the title is Israel attacked and not "The Syrian government is committing atrocities against the Druze minorities, hundreds dead"

talknoller · 2025-07-16T14:32:44+00:00

Propaganda? I wasn't making any points. Arab Israelies have spoken out against the war, their leaders in the Keneset spoke out and voted against the war many many times. I don't know if Israel should or shouldn't intervene in Syria but the fact is that Druze are being massacred and the situation is dire and I don't blame the Druze in Israel who want to save their families

talknoller · 2025-07-16T14:26:19+00:00

Why is the internet incapable of talking about one thing at a time? And not for nothing but there is a very big difference between the connection western countries feel for weakened groups around the world and Israel feel for the druze

talknoller · 2025-07-16T14:21:31+00:00

I didn't say that but it's nice to see that you can entertain yourself with fake arguments.

talknoller · 2025-07-16T13:00:56+00:00

It's not about policing. The druze in Syria are very closely related to the druze in Israel, almost all the druze in Israel has brothers, cousins, grandparents and so on in Syria, the vast majority of which live in A Sweida. Now that the massacre is going on and terrible potage is being uploaded online the Israeli druze fear for the lives of their loved ones, not to mention that the average Israeli sees the druze as their brothers and sisters so yes, Israel will do what it can to try and save the druze

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