Tutorials
Build tutorials for common FTC mechanisms, sorted by how much CAD & mechanical experience you'll need to follow along.
Easy
Pick up basic Onshape habits while building something you'll actually reuse on a robot.
Bearing Stack
The canonical "shaft + bearings + spacers" sandwich. You'll reuse this assembly everywhere.
Parallel Plate Drivetrain
Sandwich-plate chassis with bearings between the plates. The most common FTC drive-base architecture.
Claw
Single-servo gripper with a parallel-jaw linkage. Covers servo geometry, hard stops, and compliant fingers.
Linear Slide insert
Carriage and bearing block that runs inside an extrusion. The reusable building block for cascade lifts, arms, and extensions.
Silicone / Polyurethane molding
Cast custom rollers, treads, and compliant grippers from silicone or polyurethane. Mold-making and pour-cast fundamentals.
Medium
Multi-part assemblies that combine power transmission, structure, and a moving subsystem.
Bare motor drivetrain
Direct-drive wheels on a motor pair. Covers shaft-to-wheel constraints, motor mounting, and dead-axle vs live-axle tradeoffs.
Active Intake
Driven roller intake with motor + belt reduction. Introduces compliant wheels and bumper interaction.
Swingarm PTO
Power-take-off that swings between two outputs from a single motor — drive a wheel and a climb hook with the same power source.
Shooter
High-RPM flywheel with hooded geometry. Tight tolerances and balanced rotating mass for repeatable shots.
Hard
Precision mechanisms with tight tolerances, multiple degrees of freedom, or full-robot integration.
Coaxial virtual 4-bar differential arm
Two motors on a shared axis driving a virtual four-bar that keeps the end effector level while a differential controls wrist roll.
Full Decode robot
Complete robot build for the Decode season. Drivetrain, intake, scoring mechanism, and packaging — all integrated.
Full Into the Deep robot
Reference build for the Into the Deep season. Drivetrain, sample & specimen handling, hang. End-to-end integration.
Each tutorial is a starting point with placeholder images and example tips — full step-by-step guides are still being filled in. Want to contribute? Open an issue or PR on GitHub.