A six-strand curriculum for VRC V5 teams that already have one season behind them. Leave single-file VEXcode for C++, PROS, and LemLib. Leave guessing ratios for a real friction audit. Leave last-minute CAD for a team OnShape document with proper version history. Run coding, building, CAD, project management, and the engineering notebook as five parallel strands held together by one set of doctrines.
Who this is for
If your team already has a working VEXcode program, knows what a motor and a sensor are,
and is now asking how do we stop winging it? — you are the audience. If you are
still learning what a while loop is, start with a beginners' course first and
come back when you have a first season under your belt.
Cardboard, zip-ties, and a sketch on grid paper can answer in twenty minutes a question that a CAD model cannot answer in twenty hours. Prototype the question, not the final part.
Every autonomous bug lives in one of three places: the sensor readings are lying, the code is misinterpreting honest readings, or the physical robot is not doing what the motors commanded. Debug in that order.
Every load-bearing joint is sandwiched on both sides of the shear plane. Every long span is braced. Every torsion-critical beam is boxed. This is not advice — it is the build doctrine.
A design cycle is design → build → test → reflect → update the Problem Identification Log. Complete cycles move the robot forward. Partial cycles feel like work and move nothing.
The stack
The curriculum commits to one tool at every layer and teaches it deeply. No side-by-side comparisons with the alternatives. No half-learned second options. Each tool is device-agnostic — follow the upstream install page for whatever laptop you happen to own.
moveToPoint.The curriculum
Chapter I is read first — it is orientation. Chapters II–VI are the five strands, run in parallel with explicit cross-strand prerequisites named in every tutorial.
Who this curriculum is for, the six tools it commits to, the four doctrines, the seven non-negotiables, and how to run the five strands in parallel. Read this first. Roughly two hours.
Leave VEXcode for PROS. First real project, Git, heading and lateral PID, tracking-wheel odometry, LemLib motion primitives, state-machine autonomous, and a competition-day tuning workflow.
Prototype-first. Frame doctrine. Gear ratios as a physics decision. Screw theory, sandwich rules, the friction audit. Intakes, lifts, pneumatics geometry, and a pre-competition build audit.
Sketches-as-planning. Part studios. Assemblies with real motion. Parametric design and Variable Studios. CAD-first design reviews, range-of-motion validation, and a clean handoff to the build.
Sprints, stand-ups, retros. The Problem Identification Log, decision matrices, and design reviews. A cross-strand dependency map and a running-week cadence that keeps five strands synchronised.
REC rubric-aligned entries: PIL as notebook entries, brainstorms, decision matrices, build logs, test logs, Innovate Award submissions, and how to survive the judging interview.