RIGHT BRAIN · BUILD-IT-YOURSELF
Getting Started With 3D Printing
Custom brackets. Drivetrain parts. Intake rollers. Game-piece grippers. A 3D printer turns a great idea into a robot part in a few hours — for less than the price of a tank of gas.
Why every FTC team should print
FTC robots live and die by the parts a team can make themselves. Off-the-shelf brackets and 3D printed parts both have their place — but the team that can design, print, test, redesign, and print again in a single afternoon is the team that wins judged awards and matches. 3D printing is the fastest way to go from “what if we tried…” to a part bolted onto the robot.
The Two Things You Need
Don’t overthink it. 3D printing has exactly two moving parts:
1 · A slicer (free software)
This is the program on your laptop that takes a 3D model and converts it into instructions the printer understands. Every slicer below is free.
2 · A printer (hardware)
An actual machine that melts plastic and lays it down layer by layer. Today you can get a printer that wins regional tournaments for under $300.
The Software: Pick A Slicer
All four of these are completely free. They all do the same core job — turn a 3D model into G-code (printer instructions). The main difference is which printer brand they’re written for and how many knobs they give you to twist.
Direct download links
Cura — the safe default, especially for Ender 3 owners
PrusaSlicer — deepest tuning controls
Bambu Studio — required if you buy a Bambu printer
OrcaSlicer — community favorite that works with almost everything
The Hardware: Three Printers To Pick From
There are hundreds of printers on the market. For an FTC team, three of them stand out — one for each budget and skill level. These are the printers the FTC subreddit and the official FIRST Tech Challenge documentation point new teams toward in 2026.
THE STARTER · AROUND $249
Creality Ender 3 V2
The Ender 3 family is the most-printed-with line of 3D printers ever made. There is a YouTube video for every problem you will ever have and a $9 upgrade for every limitation. It is the printer that taught a generation of FTC teams to design parts.
The honest tradeoffs: manual bed leveling takes practice, top speed is much lower than the new generation of printers, and the stock hotend is PTFE-lined — meaning it can’t safely print anything above 240°C. The good news? A swap to an all-metal hotend is the most common Ender upgrade in existence, and a complete kit on Amazon runs about $12 to $20. After that swap, your Ender 3 can print ABS, ASA, and Nylon — the same engineering plastics the $700 printers handle.
THE EASY BUTTON · AROUND $299
Bambu Lab A1
The A1 is the printer your team will love on Day 1. Unbox it, plug it in, and it calibrates itself — bed level, flow rate, vibration, all of it — before the first print. It is also fast, quiet, and direct-drive (so it can print TPU for intake rollers right out of the box).
How it compares to the Ender 3: noticeably more expensive when you count the cost-of-entry, but you skip every “why won’t this print?” troubleshooting weekend an Ender owner will have. The catch is the A1 is open-frame, so it cannot safely print ABS or ASA. If your team only plans to print PLA, PETG, and TPU, this is the best money you’ll spend.
THE WORKHORSE · AROUND $399 (DEAL) / $549 (REGULAR)
Bambu Lab P1S
The P1S is the A1’s enclosed big brother. Same auto-calibration ease-of-use, same CoreXY speed (up to 500 mm/s), but with a fully enclosed build chamber and an activated-carbon air filter. That enclosure is the difference between “we can print PLA and PETG” and “we can print absolutely anything an FTC team would ever want, including ABS, ASA, and carbon-fiber-filled engineering plastics.”
How it compares to the Ender 3: roughly twice the price, but it lifts every limitation the Ender has. It is also the printer the official FTC documentation highlights for teams that want to print engineering filaments without fighting the printer first. If your team has the budget and plans to print structural parts under load, this is the one.
Filaments: The Plastic That Becomes Your Robot
There are dozens of filament types on the market, but for an FTC robot only five really matter. Here’s the short version — what each one is good at, what it isn’t, and which printer it needs.
PLA — the default
Print on: any printer. Use for: brackets, structural housings, mounts. Pros: easiest to print, cheap, very stiff, comes in every color. Cons: brittle on hard impacts and softens in a hot car. PLA is what 80% of your robot will be made of.
PETG — the tougher PLA
Print on: any printer. Use for: linear slide inserts and anything that takes shock loads. Pros: much more impact-resistant than PLA and unbothered by heat. Cons: can be stringy and is famous for bonding so well to print beds that it tears chunks off them — a swipe of glue stick fixes that.
ABS / ASA — the strongest stuff
Print on: enclosed printer (P1S) or an Ender 3 with the all-metal hotend upgrade and a DIY enclosure. Use for: drivetrain parts and anything under real mechanical load. Pros: the best mechanical properties on the list, costs about the same as PLA. Cons: emits styrene fumes (ventilate!), warps badly without an enclosure, and ASA is the better-smelling, UV-resistant cousin if you can find it.
TPU — the flexible one
Print on: any direct-drive printer (A1, P1S, or an Ender 3 with a direct-drive conversion). Use for: intake rollers, bumpers, grippy game-piece compliant parts. Pros: rubbery, near-unbreakable, and one of the most useful filaments an FTC team can have. Cons: prints slowly and won’t go through a Bowden tube (the Ender 3’s stock setup) without a fight.
Nylon (PA) — the wear king
Print on: all-metal hotend, heated bed. Use for: custom gears, pulleys, bushings — anywhere two parts grind against each other. Pros: the most wear-resistant filament you can buy and self-lubricating. Cons: soaks up moisture out of the air (it must be dried before use), and shrinks measurably when it cools. Worth the trouble for the right part.
The $12 Ender 3 Upgrade That Unlocks Everything
If you went with the Ender 3 V2, your printer has one limitation worth fixing on Day 1: the stock hotend has a PTFE (Teflon) tube that runs all the way down to the heat block. Above about 240°C, that PTFE starts to degrade and can release toxic fumes. That means no ABS, no ASA, no Nylon.
An all-metal hotend upgrade kit swaps out the throat for one piece of stainless steel and lets the printer hit 260°C safely — or up to 300°C with the right nozzle. On Amazon, these kits run $12 to $20, and the installation is about a 30-minute job with a hex wrench and a YouTube video.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
We’ll help you get started. Or print it for you.
Buying a printer is a big jump. You don’t have to make it alone. Forgotten Coast Robotics Alliance is happy to walk a new team or family through their first printer setup — from picking the machine to a first successful print. And if a 3D printer just isn’t in the cards right now, we can print things for you. Just send us your STL.
Whether you want help, want to borrow our hotend wrench, or want us to push the green button for you — reach out.
Ready to push the button?
Pick a slicer. Pick a printer. Buy one roll of PLA. You’ll be holding a custom part in your hand by the end of the weekend.