Can we still print it for judging?

Yes. Documentation is written to be read on screen or on paper, and entries keep their order and dating either way.

Who can write entries?

Anyone on the team you give the permission to. Documentation access is a role permission like everything else in the portal.

Does it replace a paper log?

It replaces the scramble to assemble one. Plenty of teams still keep a paper log at the machine; this is where it gets turned into something judges can follow.

Where do the links we reference end up?

In Resources, the team’s shared link list. Anything you paste into an entry is added there automatically, and you can add links by hand (the manual, the CAD folder, a vendor) and pin the ones people need every week.

The whole toolkit Written as you build, not the week before judging

Documentation

Your documentation is the single highest-leverage record an FTC team produces. It is most of what the engineering portfolio and the Inspire Award are judged on, and it is almost always written in the last two weeks from memory. Documentation in Robolyst exists to make writing it during the season the path of least resistance.

Try it in the live demo

Free for every team · run by a 501(c)(3)

One subsystem, read as the chronology a judge asks you to walk them through.

Intake: design log sample

Nov 12 Brainstorm
Roller intake vs. claw: three sketches cycle-time estimates for each
Nov 19 Design
Compliant roller CAD, v1 4 CAD screenshots
Nov 26 Build
First assembly on the practice bot
Dec 3 Test
Two samples at once jams the throat video · linked to task
Dec 10 Iterate
Wheels at 45°, throat widened 6mm

Design process Identify ProblemBrainstormResearchDesignBuildProgramTestIterate

On screen

The page itself, captured out of the live demo, which anyone can open, without an account.

Open it yourself

Robolyst FTC engineering documentation: dated build-log entries tagged by subsystem and design stage, from autonomous path planning to intake testing. — The engineering notebook, written as the season happens.

What teams say

I love Robolyst. It helps make documentation and taking notes much easier. Since my team started using Robolyst meetings have also started to become much smoother.

FTC #30334

Blood, Sweat, and Gears

Every testimony

Entries where the work happens

Write an entry from a phone in the shop, tag it to a subsystem and a design stage, and it lands in your documentation in order. No separate document to remember to open.

Structured the way judges read

Entries carry subsystem, stage and date, so your documentation can be read as a chronology or as the story of one mechanism. Both are questions judges ask.

Subsystems you define: drivetrain, intake, outtake, autonomous, whatever the robot has
Design stages from concept through iteration to final
Photos, CAD screenshots and video embedded inline
Links between entries, tasks and the parts that were ordered for them

Rich text that behaves

A real editor (headings, lists, tables, images, embeds) and a text box nowhere in sight. Type @ to pull in a task, a teammate, a part you ordered or an award, and it stays live: the entry updates when the thing it cites does.

Photos dropped straight into an entry, and every one of them filed in the team’s image library on the way past
Albums and subsystem filters, so “show me the intake, all season” is two clicks
The same library the public site pulls from, so a photo used for judging can be used on the sponsor page
Turn smart tagging on and the subsystem, stage and entry type are proposed from what you wrote. You click to accept

The links stop living in the group chat

Every URL you cite in an entry (the CAD folder, the vendor part page, the section of the game manual an argument turned on) is collected into the team’s Resources list on its own. One row per link, however many entries reference it, so the reference material is findable without reopening the entry that mentioned it.

Titles, descriptions and site icons are read from the page; you paste a URL and nothing else
Filed by category (game manual, CAD, vendors, docs, media) and searchable
Pin the handful everyone needs and they sit at the top for the whole team
Open counts show which references are actually being used
Links pasted into tasks arrive the same way, so it is one list rather than one per workspace

Nothing lost between seasons

Last year’s documentation is still there next year, which is how a rookie learns why the drivetrain is the way it is instead of rediscovering it.

Questions teams ask

Can we still print it for judging?: Yes. Documentation is written to be read on screen or on paper, and entries keep their order and dating either way.
Who can write entries?: Anyone on the team you give the permission to. Documentation access is a role permission like everything else in the portal.
Does it replace a paper log?: It replaces the scramble to assemble one. Plenty of teams still keep a paper log at the machine; this is where it gets turned into something judges can follow.
Where do the links we reference end up?: In Resources, the team’s shared link list. Anything you paste into an entry is added there automatically, and you can add links by hand (the manual, the CAD folder, a vendor) and pin the ones people need every week.

The rest of the toolkit

Documentation is one part of the portal.

The roster, the build schedule, your documentation, the money and your public site run on the same free account. Setting it up takes an afternoon.