Worked Examples & Mini-Projects
Stop reading and start building. This module walks you through five concrete, end-to-end mini-projects that a rookie can finish in a weekend: spinning your first motor with the REV Hardware Client, deploying a real arcade-drive program to a roboRIO, refactoring into a clean command-based subsystem, building a Fuel launcher for the 2026 REBUILT game, and adding a one-button autonomous routine. Every step uses real parts (AM14U6 chassis, SPARK MAX, NEO) and real, copy-pasteable WPILib 2026 Java code. By the end you will have a robot that drives, shoots, and runs an auto routine.
Worked Examples & Mini-Projects is module 5 of 7 in the Getting Started with FRC guide. It picks up where Getting Started: Your First Steps left off and hands over to Common Mistakes & Troubleshooting. At ~245 minutes across 5 lessons it is the longest module in the guide, which runs about 17 hours end to end.
In this module
5 lessons
Jargon check
FRC terms used in Worked Examples & Mini-Projects
- Autonomous AutoThe opening segment of a match where the robot operates entirely on pre-programmed code with no driver input.
- Command-Based ProgrammingWPILib's recommended structure that organizes robot code into Subsystems and Commands for clean, reusable behavior.
- SPARK MAXA REV Robotics motor controller for brushed and brushless (NEO) motors, configured via REV Hardware Client.
- roboRIOThe National Instruments controller that is the 'brain' of the robot, running team code and coordinating all devices.
- WPILibThe official, free software library for programming FRC robots in Java, C++, or Python (RobotPy).
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This is the Getting Started with FRC one — 5 lessons, about 245 minutes. The departments below run a module by the same name over completely different material.
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