Re: How much do you design before kickoff?
 

I'm sorry i cannot agree with this. Perhaps if you are re-using the frame from year to year, this might be a good idea, but it may also be a good idea to make a new frame once in a while. We made our robot 1 inch less than max wide, and we had major troubles manuerving in the competition. (getting up the stairs around the goal to hang was quite the problem.) thankfully we had an awesome driver, but now he's graduated, and we're definately going to take this into great consideration this coming season.

~Stephanie

<edit> woohoo! mai post was the first one on the second page! </edit>

Re: How much do you design before kickoff?
 

Waht does work before the kickoff mean?!
:rolleyes:
For the last couple of years , we have failed to do much before the competition, bar fundraising. This year we have been assigned projects such as investigating the effects of center of mass, and building line follower equipment ( i have a strong feeling it will turn up again....). The aim is to have less work to do in the final week of the build, which has been hectic in previous years.... (last year, we had about 5 people working constantly, doing shifts and sleeping in the workshop....)

Re: How much do you design before kickoff?
 

What we do in the off season is test out ideas that could possibly be usefull in the future such as omniwheels, new drive train, autonomous mode etc. we just see if we can get a working prototype then if it would be usefull in the competition we use it.

Re: How much do you design before kickoff?
 

the only thing we do before kickoff is meet to see if we think that the drive train needs to be modified. I try to tell the kids "why re-invent the wheel". Yes we can try another drive train but what if it fails in compitition? :yikes:

Re: How much do you design before kickoff?
 

Our team hasn't really designed that much before the kickoff in the past, but last year we ended up building our robot after about 3 weeks after the kickoff and we had some problems. So this year we're not gonna let that happen again and we've started designing different drivetrains and gearboxes. We'll usually just sketch them out although today one of the mentors used salt and pepper shakers to create a model.