Team 103 Robot
 

Here's the highligts of our submission:









And here's the link to look at our portfolio: 103 Inventor website

Let me know what you think about it.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Nicely done! My son who uses Autodesk too needs to check this out. I'm impressed.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

That really does look terrific. I am thoroughly impressed with the fine details you put in the renderings, including linked chains and indivudial wires/cable ties. Amazing work guys.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

how many man-hours do you estimate it took?

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Wow, looks like the Cybersonics are up for another Inventor award this year. Great job guys!

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

*picks jaw back up from the floor*

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

On that note, how many people are on your CAD team all season?

As usual, very impressive work. Did you use the CAD drawings in the shop for specifications while machining parts, or did the CAD team based its drawings off of parts? Our team did the latter, but the intention was the former.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

wow thats incredible work. points. i have to say that your wiring IS pretty amazing. It looks like you have a team that can fully appreciate CAD for its potential. Good job.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

This year we had two people working full-time on Inventor (Rob and Mike), and one person (Didzis) did a little of the Inventor and a lot of manufacturing parts on the CNC router table. I helped them out with setting up the website page templates and suggestions for how to divide the assembly models, etc., but all of the Inventor work was theirs. I was pretty amazed at their attention to detail myself - like when I saw Mike putting the zip-ties on the wiring! There may be such a thing as too much of a good thing...
Most of the parts were made first and the team documented them, but this year quite a few parts were done in CAD for the router table - mostly using AutoCAD, but a couple were done in Inventor.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Three people!?! We had about 6 on average working, and around 10 total who were "part of the CAD team." You guys hav amazing inventor skills.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Keep in mind that a lot of you were still learning Inventor, and no one was completely knowlegable in the most advanced features. Plus, with all the redesigning of shooters and other parts on our robot, you guys couldn't get much of a head start on designing things.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Awesome! I love the materials and reflections.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Wow. I wish I was that good. I can get it good enough but that far exceeds my skill. Great work guys.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Guys looks good as always, even less manpower then last year and you guys still pulled off an excellent entry, proud of you guys. Can't wait to see what you three can pull off next year when each of you have a whole nother year of experience under your belt.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Thank You everyone for the great Comments, I really enjoyed hearing what you had to say. I hope that the judges really look at us again, but I don't think that they'll give the Inventor award to us again, I would like to see some other team win it, just so they know what it feels like to have all that hard work pay off. If you have any questions, please e-mail me, or search me out at nationals, if any of you are going.

Thanks again,
Robert Thacker-Dey
Cbersonics 103

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

congrats on the win for inventor this year you guys did one amazing job. can't wait to see what comes out next year from team 103.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Go T-dey!!! Great job guys i know a lot of 'hard' work went into this mike and didzis... who knows what will happen next year... better start training those freshmen

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Congrats T-Dey on the award, looks like somebody can win inventor 2 years in a row. I geuss if anybody can do it it's gotta be 103. I'll see you guys in 2 weeks when I get to come home. Beleive me it's a pain trying to watch you guys from thousands of miles away on a really bad live feed (not that NASA's was bad I mean my internet connection is horrible).

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Congrats on another amazing job. Now Robert, leave the workstation before that CPU sucks in the rest of your soul :)

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

i think our whole team told the inventor crew that there was no way they would ever win again...and i guess we were proved wrong! congrats thacker-dey, mike, and didzes!

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

amazing work cybersonics

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

LOL The rest of my soul belongs to the team anyway, so I guess loosing the rest of it is really no big loss on my part. :D

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

I guess "we won it last year" will never again be a valid excuse! (Trust me, we've hidden behind that one in other awards)

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

I know this post's been around a bit, but I just thought about it a little, so here goes:
For many situations, three is the perfect number for a team. Three is a low enough number that everyone can operate on an equal level, without the need for a "captain" to oversee them. This also eliminates the need for someone to find work for the underlings, which was a huge problem on our CAD team (3 Seniors, 1 Jr. in his 2nd year on CAD, and three utter n00bs (myself included) with mechanical (me), architectural CAD, or no experience). The new kids were often forced to sit on their hands because the leadership couldn't spend all of their time giving us work to do. If they had, they couldn't have accomplished anything themselves.
On the other hand, three people eliminate the power struggles that are inevitable in a two-man/woman team. The third person acts as the check and balance in a disagreement, weighing in to support the sensible side.
The result of all of this is that a three person team seems just about right for a task of this size. I'm sure that many teams have had ample success with larger teams and better organization, but my point is not to count out the smaller teams.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Especially when they're Rob, Mike and Didzis! Seriously, I agree with you - as long as the people are really into what they're doing. Too many cooks spoil the soup sort of thing. Didn't hurt a bit that they learned their trade last year with Jason! This year Rob and Mike did about 90% of the work, because Didzis was more involved in manufacturing than last year (he did a lot of the CNC router table work).

Now that we know the AIA can be won more than once, I've challenged the team to see if they can make it a threepeat! Watch out world: I bet Rob will be in a tightly-coupled symbiotic relationship with his laptop and Inventor 11 for the summer...

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

I think we've experienced this already Pete. And yeah I think with Inventor a 2-4 guy team is perfect. Hopefully I'll be able to come to kickoff again before I'm shipped out once again. I plan on comming to visit you guys in a week to give you your congrats in person.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

o god. I've got a 1-person XCORE team. Ok so its not that many people, but i think im getting the hang of everything in inventor all the way down to the wiring and welding.

I have decided i want to go for the inventor award next year. We have never even submitted before, but ive already started working on models more improved than the ones on the CAD library in hopes to take it, as i've been told detail makes the difference. I plan on working over the summer, and i have no idea whether i will stand a chance or not, but its worth a shot. Think i stand a chance?

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Absolutely. My two cents:

Practice does make perfect. Once build season starts you won't have much time for learning - you need to be able to create accurate part models quickly.

Explore a lot. Inventor has tons of features which have gone largely unexplored in the submissions I've seen. Go through the "what's new in Inventor" stuff and check out the online info, too.

Delegate. If you can, get somebody to set up the web pages and shoot the pictures - these are things which should be done in parallel with the Inventor content. The web page layouts should be done before the designs are finished, and you can start populating pages with screenshots way early in the process.

Remember your history. Keep notes and abandoned design elements - they tell a lot about how your robot developed. This year team 342 has a really nice week-by-week diary which tells the story of their designs evolution very well using prototype models and photos from along the way. Very nice.

Practice some more.

Okay, that was probably more like three cents, so good luck and feel free to ask questions - PMs are free.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Thats really a amazingly detailed model. I did some of the Inventor work for my team this year, and I'm still amazed by the power of programs like this. I never quite completed the robot, but after seeing that, I feel like taking the time this summer to go back and reverse engineer the whole thing in CAD to learn more about the program.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

You're right. I honestly never thought we would win it this year. But nevertheless, I got to warn teams that I'm bringing Inventor to a whole new level next year. You'll have to see what we put out!

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

simply amazing. Did you use an easy button to create this? lol

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Hints? Teasers? Please?
I know you won't, but it was worth a try...

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

uhoh. and just when i was starting to gain confidence. Ive already started models for next year.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Hey, look on the bright side: the margin between first and second place was just 0.390 points this year. :ahh:

Kinda glad I didn't have to judge that. And Robert: you can start sweating now - I'm sure that will encourage the competition!

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

heheheh- I know. It's going to be fun!

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

Sorry, but you'll just have to wait and find out.

Re: Team 103 Robot
 

i dont think we need the mudslinging here. i think we all know whos winning this one. :)