Have not started building
 

Have any other teams not started building yet? We are planning to start on monday, but I want to know if this happened to anyone else

Re: Have not started building
 

Building what exactly? Prototypes/practice bot/final bot?

Do you have CAD relatively put together?

Re: Have not started building
 

The CAD is almost done but we barely have a prototype and nothing towards the final bot

Re: Have not started building
 

I wouldn't worry. It's still somewhat early to have already started building the actual Robot instead of the prototype. (In my opinion, that is. I'm a Rookie on the team so I'm only going with my gut here, lol).

Re: Have not started building
 

I was just about to ask the same thing. We have our Cad 99% done and our frame is going to the powder coating (a first for us this year), but other than getting the gears, motors, motor controllers, etc... we have almost nothing. :) Hoping to start putting together all the parts this coming week.

Re: Have not started building
 

Don't worry about it. Assuming you have good design and decently precise fabrication of parts, assembling the bot does not take very long.

As a word of advice, make sure you have the CAD and a person who worked on the CAD present when assembling. Depending on your design, things may get confusing without the 3D render and people familiar with it.

Re: Have not started building
 

Practice bot is coming along nicely. CAD is 100% done.

Competition robot parts have started to be machined/fabricated, yet no real assembly has taken place on it.

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We are in a similar boat. We have barely built anything and our robot is still mostly in the computer. We plan to send out our custom parts between now and Wednesday at the latest. We also have several large VEX/McMaster/Other orders that will also be going out shortly.

Re: Have not started building
 

We ordered our metal from Onlinemetals.com. it was a lot cheaper then mcmastercarr for basic aluminum stock.

Re: Have not started building
 

Hopefully you're either building a KoP or waiting on CAD parts. Time flows like a river. We're planning on building from CAD in the next few days.

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We have 99% of the CAD done also, we are just figuring out if everything is going to work like mechanically. We have a prototyped shooter that when is set up properly can constantly keep hitting shots in the high school at 13 feet away (about farthest back we think we can be). We are waiting for Rhino Tracks to ship to start building the chassis. We are hoping to get some aluminum cut so we can get a chance to get it welded. We organized all of the parts we have and the main problem we are going to run into is where to put everything. We have a total of 11 motors so we will need to position all of those motor controllers somewhere. But I don't think you should worry about not having a final robot started on, as long as you have been designing and prototyping.

Re: Have not started building
 

If your plan is good, i.e your CAD is on point, any prototypes have worked satisfactorily, you have a schedule laid out for build objectives, then you should be able to put together a robot and finish it with enough time to practice.

It's just a matter of making sure everyone's doing their appointed job and meeting deadlines.

Our team didn't finish the robot 2013 - 2015. So this year to prevent that we decided to pretty much scrap all prototyping focusing on what people posted on CD and Ri3D. And go right for the comp bot. We should be done with 80% of it today. (still waiting on our waterjet sponsors parts). The next 20% will be done latest by Friday. But it is not really up to us. This allows us to get quite a bit of practice before our week 0 event and after that we will have a ton of practice going into our week 2 event.

Re: Have not started building
 

Honestly, we're in the same boat as you are: CAD almost done, some prototypes, nothing final built. We're also way behind our self-imposed schedule.
The thing is, we do this every year. A lot of teams do: all it means is that we're putting more effort into having a solid, coherent design. Although it would probably be safer (read: less stressful) to have started building earlier, it's easier to make revisions and edits in CAD than on the actual robot.
If I were you, I wouldn't lose sleep over where you are now, just focus on moving ahead expeditiously.

Re: Have not started building
 

We have not built yet, CAD is complete, parts are on order and the waterjeting begins next week. Once the design is done and parts are ordered, once things have arrived, things go together quickly. Team LHS 2522 - Royal Robotic

Re: Have not started building
 

VIKotics team5920
1/2 game pieces are done
one drive base done with 8 inch solid wheels, and some prototyping done.
2nd drive base with 8 inch pneumatic wheels part way done.
Practice area almost finished being cleaned
Will finish 2nd bot this week and testing.
Will start drivers training with the 1st bot and solid wheels.
Testing prototypes over game elements.
I think everyone is working hard and having fun.

Re: Have not started building
 

Good job guys!

Re: Have not started building
 

What people seem to forget is that just because you have a schedule doesn't make the schedule good. Take time at the end of the season and ask if your schedule actually made sense. I noticed on our schedule our strategy was supposed to be done BEFORE Q&A which I found a little bit sketchy.

"SIR WE HAVEN'T FINISHED BUILDING ROME."
"Calm down dude it has only been a day..."

Re: Have not started building
 

CAD was finished around week 1, and we've been building our prototype robot which is close enough to being finished to make me confident and positive in our design. For electrical our board is mounted to the prototype and while we're waiting for it to be finished we're going ahead and working on the second one with other groups that are also getting started on it. Our day today was productive which definitely helps with how everyone works.

Re: Have not started building
 

Our team has tried to utilize a method of simultaneous CAD design and prototyping. We spent the first week CADing individual subsystems, but as soon as we started to get in each other's way(everyone trying to put their subsystem on the chassis at the same time), we moved around 2/3 of our core CAD team into prototyping the shooter and intake. We didn't have anything built for the final robot until last tuesday(1/26), but with the CAD finished everything, is coming together, which fast that it makes up for the late start on fabrication.

Re: Have not started building
 

We have started building, having a Week 1 competition we decided to basically complete the bot by next week and have lots of driving and sensor adjustment time.

Our HG/LG shooter is working great , as is the tank drive base. We are working on the lift and the manipulators for doors. We should have a mostly completed bot by next week. Lots of drive/shoot practice and fine tuning until bag and tag. We have the field element too to practice with.

Exciting we made a lot of progress today and should have fun in San Diego Week 1.

Re: Have not started building
 

Woah. That's pretty impressive! Great job guys, and I wish you good luck!

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We don't normally meet on Sundays, but will be meeting tomorrow to get the robot "mechanically done"*** with wiring Monday/Tuesday and testing/tweaking the rest of the week (and then some).

***we expect that some things won't work exactly as we want them to, even with our prototypes having worked great so far. As those problems crop up, we'll fix them on one robot while the programmers/drivers play with the other, then swap. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Re: Have not started building
 

I agree, for the most part, with what has been said here so far. Where I differ however is that if you haven't really prototyped anything by this point you might run into fabrication issues or things not coming together correctly, or parts not working as anticipated. Last year my team didn't really have a final design until about this time during build season and when we finally finished your robot we found that our claw pick up, admittedly not the best way to go last year, didn't work and we were sunk. Our robot could barely pick up a tote and we didn't have enough time left in the build season to make any major designs changes and we were stuck with a robot at competition that we knew wasn't going to be competitive and it was hard on the team. I would really encourage that your prototype your things as you're building them in CAD to make sure that your idea will actually work before you build it and realize that what you have spent the past 3 weeks working on doesn't work.

Re: Have not started building
 

Agree we learned that year 1 and last year.... I think the best advice I came across online (I forget which team it was) was to have the main robot or replica functioning prototype built by week 4 regardless of your resources, this allows for modification and driving/strategy time. We are desperately trying to hit that week 4 mark this year. As we have a week 1 only opportunity pending a wk 5 waitlist.

I admire teams with extensive prototype capabilities... even they from what I read don't wait until the last moment to assemble to allowing time for iterative improvements to the main design. Many reconfigure throughout using the bag allowance during competition season.

Re: Have not started building
 

Every team takes it differently.

As my team has no access to computers of any sort (besides the Classmate PC that is the drive station), we aren't able to do CAD. I teach them rudimentary sketching skills, and I have them craft prototypes out of cardboard and wood.

The first weekend, I make them read the entire manual, and then craft individual ideas for strategy, before we decide on strategy as a group.

Then it's individual design, then consensus group design.

My team is also made up of approximately 60% special needs, so the clearly lain out order of operations may assist them in a way that might frustrate a team that is better able to operate independently. Teams that are better able to do things on their own will be much more efficient.

My point is, start any time you want. I have pointed out to my team that they believe in the Ri3D concept; their three days just usually commence the Sunday before Stop Build.

Re: Have not started building
 

We have constructed all of the game pieces. Have CAD done for the chassis, maybe 50% done for other stuff. Have completed prototypes for shooter and intake. Construction of our chassis will start on Monday. We have just gotten all of the chassis machined and custom bevel gear boxes constructed.

Re: Have not started building
 

We have almost nothing for the final robot finished yet, we do however have a mostly functioning prototype robot built minus a few features. We are starting work on the final robot this week. Most of the work is building more refined and compacted designs that are on our prototype robot.

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We have our transport system mounted on our chassis, we have some rudimentary wiring on the chassis, and we have a prototype of our shooter complete. No complete functional package yet though.

Re: Have not started building
 

Just take the time and make sure the CAD gets done correctly. If there are no issues with the CAD then it will assemble quickly. There are obviously going to be problems that will need to be ironed out once the actual robot is complete, but getting as many problems ironed out while in the CAD phase makes the rest of the process easier. My team just finished the drivetrain on our practice robot .

Re: Have not started building
 

We have a pretty different approach; we are not heavy users of CAD. We do use 2D CAD to establish key dimensions and relationships, and to document the "current thinking." We also have Solidworks, but our skill level is pretty low.

I should say that we are a good team but not a top team. We are a regional team drawing from 6 to 8 schools every year. We do not have ability to move from an organized CAD class to the lab. Still we have had pretty good success at the district and regional level in recent years.

We work mostly through cardboard or wood mock-ups to semi-functional metal mockups to final design. We concentrate on making it work at the mock-up level. We also insist that each subsystem be modular so it can be taken out and worked on off the robot.

The advantage of this system is that we make the development of the design very "real" to the designers; we can feel and touch what works and what doesn't. We seldom experience a final design that fails to work. Also, the design responsibility can be spread throughout the team, even to those who have little CAD skill or fabrication experience.

Today, after the 4th work weekend all the basic assemblies are working under manual control and fit together on the bot. The next two weeks will be spent fine tuning and practicing.

I realize we are going against the grain here, but I thought another point of view might be interesting.

Re: Have not started building
 

We started build about two weeks in. We are building "twin" robots, but they aren't following a necessarily lead/trail pattern. During weeks 3 and 4, Chassis 1 received a solid drive train (rather complex, with four ranks of wheels), while chassis 2 was been used for pickup and launch prototypes. Saturday morning, we switched so that the drive train team is using chassis 2 and manipulators chassis 1. Chassis 2 will receive the "wedge" upgrade before chassis 1. By the end of six weeks, we should have twins, and have the decision of which one to bag and which one to use for drive practice and further development. Last year, we changed that decision on our bag day.