How long does your team plan?
 

My team has been working to setup our schedule for build season. I was wondering how long other teams spend Planning their robot before actually building anything?

And if you have time any particular reason you spend x amount of time designing?

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Our team spent about 2-3 weeks analyzing the game and its rules, creating our strategy for the game, prototyping and then after we had a strategy and a great knowledge of all the build rules and game rules, we spent the remanding time actually building the robot.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Week 1-Game Analysis and Conceptual Design
Week 2-Robot Design
Week 3-Component Design/Begin Build
Week 4/5-Build
Week 6-Integrate & Test

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Can't speak for 1618 (yet), but last year 1293 spent the first Saturday learning the game and getting the hang of what we wanted the robot to be. Once we had it refined (which was late Week 1, IIRC), we had the two subteams (chassis and scoring) break off and get to work on their respective areas. (The higher-ups, both student and mentor, on each subteam kept the other end abreast of any changes, like when they needed to make sure we kept the front end clear for ball pickup.) Now, actual scoring components didn't go on until Week 6, but that was due to unrelated issues--we were probably driving late week 3.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Week 1 - Learn the game, strategy, ideas, concepts
Week 2 - prototyping
Week 3 - working prototype. design is finalized
Week 4 - Build
Week 5 - Finish building
Week 6 - Testing/Final Programming

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

A team near us, the Beachbots (330), apparently spent 4 weeks planning in 2005 and produced this awesome robot. They also won championships that year.

Several members of my team went to a seminar of theirs on their development process, I highly recommend getting in touch with them and asking about it. Our team plans on using it this year.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

we meet 4-5 hours 2 nights a week, and 8-9 hours sat.
Week1
First Sat. (Jan. 6): analyze game, plan robot.
Weekday meetings: build first prototype drive, start working on manipulators.
Sat. 2: finish drive.
Sat. 3-4: attach any manipulators and test.
Therest of the time: Test test test test test rebuild test test test.
Feb. 18: first time to test programing.:yikes:

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

all we do for the first 3-6 days is discuss the game... and the possibilities of "What we want to do better than everyone else". Then we plan our entire robot around that.

I guess the planning is like the game rules. It changes, alot.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

This past year we went to kickoff and took our KOP, sorted and inventoried and had a small little design meeting. Then on monday the entire team had a 2 hour strategy debate, followed by a 2 hour Design debate on Tuesday. Then we went to build our robot.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

I don't know the exact days, but we came back from kickoff to brainstorm, Monday and part of Tuesday was inventory, and we started building by the end of the first week.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Normal:
1-2: analyze game many times in different scenarios. Plan strategy to win. Come up with requirements.
3-4: Develop preliminary design, lock it down, CAD it into final.
5-6: build and test

Last year:
1-2: normal
3-4: Prototype to determine design.
5-6 build like crazy to meet deadline.
Design built from prototypes made in weeks 1-4.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Before or at kickoff, we split the team into 3 or 4 design groups.
those groups work independantly, to maintain creativity.
then, we have what we call "Drop dead design day" on the first thursday after kickoff, and on that day we stay after school and discuss designs untill we decide.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Kickoff-Thursday after kickoff: Split in to sub-teams and come up with 4 robot designs.
Friday after kickoff-week 3 or 4: Build
Week 4.5-6: Test, break, repeat.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

1745's plan


jan 7th kick off team viewing party(somewhere)
jan 9th school resumes we figure out what were going to do
jan 9-12 teams are made(and edumacated), kit chassis built.
jan 14 sonic fund raiser so we can get the $500 needed to build the bot
jan 15 -end of build(no idea what that is) figure out the game, come up with a design, build it, code it, rebuild it, rethink it, recode it, forget it, hit it with a hammer, finish robot.

from then till about 2 weeks before lonestar fund raise 7k so we can go to lonestar

notes: some one find out all the dates on things,

********
best part about this plan is this is exactly(cut and paste) what I mass emailed to the team a week ago no changes(we still dont know the dates)
********

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

We usually do have a schedule but we do not follow it 100%. Last year many times we came in on days we were not to meet during the build season and our hours and everything were completely off what was pre-planned.

Pavan.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

For the chassis, we plan for most of the off season. We design the chassis and trannys with autodesk a couple different ways and when the kickoff comes, we quickly pick the best one and start building within the first few days. For the appendage, we normally plan for a week or two after the kickoff and then start to build.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

In theory, one to one and a half weeks would go into design of our robot.

Last year it ended up that it took until the end of week 3, because we had no idea whether our ball pickup/conveyor to shooter would work.

The only way you can take that long to design is if you do everything in CAD though. Otherwise you're sunk when things don't go together like you thought they would.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

We spend roughly the first week discussing game strategy and robot designs, then begin construction at some point on the Saturday at the end of the first week.

However, only various components are finished as we go along. Our design keeps changing as we go, and sometimes we're still designing things in week 5/6 because of test failures or rude awakenings (we came up with the mechanism for releasing balls Saturday before ship, and tested it President's day, which is our ship day).

I'd like to keep such events from happening this year. Hopefully we can figure everything out earlier.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

i think the longer u spend planning.. the better your robot will be. For the FVC season.. our team planned for like.. a day.. w/o working out all the strategies and stuff.. so we turned out going through and building six designs.. so.. the more time spent planning.. the more you kno wat you're doing.. and wat u're actually aiming for in a robot.
NOT SAYING that teams who plan in a short amount of time aren't awesome.. of course they're awesome.. mayb it's just our team... we need time to process. lol

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

So far all the posts have been about the robot. What about field elements. Our team makes a push after the first week to Build the key field elements. You can look at the pictures and description of the field and field elements but nothing compares to actually having them put together and setup. This allows a team to test prototypes and many times you can see strategies and methods more clearly.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Well, we take the design process very seriously, this is our biggest step of the season. Our whole team is involved in this because after this we split up into our seperate groups to get the team ready for ship.

We spend the whole first week after kickoff planning for the season

After Kickoff we spend a few hours discussing the game.
The first monday after kickoff we go to GM and we discuss the game and get everyone on the team familiar with the game so there is no confusion about it.
The Next day we get together and take about the game elements and strategies that we can come up with that will excel in the game. We make it a fact that we do not design anything this day.
On Wednesday we finish talking about the strategies and start coming up with a drivetrain idea.
Thursday we start designing the rest of the robot with our strategies.
Friday we rethink everything and check to see if we made a jack of all trades. We make sure everyones designs and concepts are heard and we make the simplist design we can.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

It shocks me to see teams with numbers lower than ours waiting till week 3 or 4 to start building parts.

That's unheard of on Team 237.
Week 1:
Saturday: Kickoff - Members watch NASA TV or webcast.
Sunday: Team kickoff brunch/luncheon where everyone on the team who didn't watch kickoff live gets the game basics and learns what is in the kit.
Monday: Kids are expected to have read the manual and be ready to discuss game play and strategy - Go over kit parts again to learn what we can use.
Tuesday: Come up with ways to win and get the most points.
Weds: Accomplish ideas for how to "do" the "what" discussed on Tuesday.
Thursday: Mechanical & Electrical split off from rest of team and tweak details of design.
Friday: Finish overall system design, start subsystems.
If the metal chips in the metal shop start flying on Friday we are very happy with ourselves.
If they start flying Monday, we are still happy.. but that just means something requires a little more attention than normal.

Weeks 2-5:
Build, Test, Rebuild, Assemble, Build, Test, Rebuild, Assemble.
Week 5.75-6: Give to electrical team to wire as we are packing it in the crate. :D

You don't know what 6 weeks worth of stress is unless you are on the Electrical team within 237, but then you have had 5.5 weeks of relaxing and .5 weeks of hardcore work so you better be up to it!


Flipside point of view: Plan for too long, and don't have enough time to "do". :eek:

Those 42ish days fly by faster than you realize.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

2006
Sunday Immediately following Kickoff 8-11: Marathon Brainstorm
Week 1: Prototype
Week 2: Prototype
Week 3: Build Frame/Continue Prototyping other systems
Week 4: Decide on shooter
Week 5: Begin Assembly/Continue prototyping
Days 1,2,3,4 of Week 6: Continue Assembly, desperately attempt to figure out storage tank for balls
Days 5,6: Build storage tank for balls, assemble robot at breakneck speed
7: Test autonomous, Driver practice.

:o Yep, the whole finish designing by week 3, we kinda missed.:ahh:

Word to the Wise: This is not a good idea. While during years 1 and 2 the administration and janitor expected we were crazy, they were throroughly convinced after this ordeal. Stress runs very high during those last few days.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

well on our team everyone doesn't go to kick off maybe about 10-15 students after kick off the following Monday everyone meets over at GM we discuss the game inside and out making sure everyone knows whats going on then we spend the next 3 days brainstorming ideas on the 4th day we pick an idea and a robot design the following week every Monday Wednesday Thursday and Saturday the engineering teem meets at GM and create our robot with 4 of the remaining weeks the 5th week is human player and driver try outs along with crate painting

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Wow everyone, Thanks for all the responces, I think that from what everyone has said, the 6 days we have planned will be plenty. Good Luck everyone, 22 days and counting

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Im kind of surprised at how many people don't meet to brainstorm strategy/design after kickoff on sat and/or on sunday.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Me too.

Team 294 (and 2150 this year) meets at our Sponsor on kickoff day to watch the video and strategize all day. I assumed it was pretty much standard practice for teams to do something like that.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

422 stays at school Saturday and Sunday and we do a very large amount of our planning over those two days. Thats why I put up this survey, as I was originally thinking that those two days(totaling about 16 hours of meeting) would be close to enough planning time for the robot with one or two more meetings to work out the bugs in the designs.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

I'm remarkably surprised by the number of folks who've written something akin to, "We design the robot on Tuesday."

I can't believe that any single team can appreciably design an entire robot over the course of a single day. I'm interpreting those statements to be something more like, "We draw boxes on a whiteboard," or "We make it up as we go along."

How long does it take for the folks who design everything in advance to work through the whole robot? If I work on nothing else, it takes me about four days to a design solidified enough to move onward to production.

Maybe I just don't have the nerve to fly by the seat of my pants and design things as we go along.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

So am I. Guys, think first, then build. Strategy is everything. Spend a day or two (even a week) working out a strategy, then build to meet it. Watch your team score higher in the rankings (assuming decent partners).

Again, a bad thing to do. We take up to a week, first coming up with ideas, then evaluating them, then having small groups design a robot, then choosing one design for the robot.

Depends on the part. I'd guess about a week on average once the design is locked. However, when the part designs are locked depends on the part. The drive frame is the first thing to lock. (If you can't drive, you are pretty much useless on the field.) By then we have some idea about the rest of the robot, but then we have to design the other parts and lock those designs. In 2005, we didn't start until week 5, and we were complete other than some modifications to our arm's grabbing end and painting by ship date. 2006, we had a drivable frame before the shooter was locked down.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

We are going through some drastic changes between this year and previous years for our build schedule. 2005 we were working at BAE systems, but the entire first week was held in a classroom at the high school brainstorming. The final design wasn't even created then.

This past year, we brainstormed for the shooter and tried to agree on which design to use. Both of these design phases have been done with a committee involving the entire team.

However, this upcoming year, we are going to have a smaller design group with 8-10 students and maybe 3-4 mentors. They will be making all the decisions as far as the robot design goes. Anyone can give input, but the final design will be created by this crew. We plan to start on Monday and end on Friday, then present the final design to the entire team. I have a feeling the manipulator will be designed earlier on so prototyping can begin for those who are not on the design team.

So basically. Saturday of Kickoff and Sunday is spent with the team learning the rules and simulating the game so we can agree on VERY general functions of the robot. Using 2006 as an example, the team would decide that the robot picks up from the floor and shoots in the high goal.
Then Monday - Friday is design/field element construction/prototyping
Saturday week 2 onwards for maybe a week - Protyping and build
Week 3,4 and most likely 5 - build
maybe 5 and 6 - practice and software integration.
Our schedule says that we should have a completely and fully funtional robot by 2/7. That's a reasonable goal, right? It gives us a good, challenging goal, and some fudge time incase things don't go exactly our way, which seems to be the case every year.

I hope that answered your question.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Actually we started cutting metal on Saturday of Week 4 but by then we had a pretty darn good idea of what we were building. At that point we were still thinking about which of two drive train concepts to use. We didn't finalize the drive train until Week 5 when we had a working prototype of the riskier one. The frame was designed to accomodate both.

One of the keys is knowing what you can do and how long it will take. We could spend that time figuring out what we were going to do because we knew that it would take about a day to cut the frame, another to weld it, and two or three to integrate it all. So we could start with a well defined design and still get it to the programming guys about the middle of week 5.

Another key is spiral development. Some things you can decide early and lock in. Others will take more time to figure out so you wait. For example, in most cases the drive is the most important subsystem. The nature of the drive is determined in large part by the field and how you want to interact with it. So we will pick a concept fairly early and have some people working on the final drive design while we are still figuring out some other item like the ball pickup or shooter. Some flexibility is left in the frame to accomodate different mounting options for subsystems.

One advantage of a spiral approach is you get the important things done first. Also if you make individuals reponsible for one subsystem then they are only stressed during the time that system is taking "center stage". So the drive train team might be working hot and heavy for 2 weeks, but when it is done then they are done. They can help with other systems or go put their life back together. It greatly reduces individual stress.

One thing to remember about FRC, the process is as important as the machine. The teams that do well year after year have good management of their product development process. This is the real contribution of engineering mentors, they understand this and do it almost instinctively because that is how they work in the everyday world.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

You guys really spend a full seven days discussing strategy? That seems beyond excessive to me. I can't recall any game I've competed in that would require a solid week just to figure out what to do to score points.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Some might and just don't mention it (like ours). We take the kit back after kickoff on Saturday, inventory it, and start discussing design. We never meet on Sundays, so that doesn't happen. This meeting is usually at someone's house though, not where we work.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

We take the Whole first week discussing strategy.

I think you need to take a while to discuss this because you need to figure out what would be the best way to build your robot.

For example, in 2005 we had to figure out how we would get the tetras on the top of the goals (we figure out a telescope idea ), and how to carry the tetras on the arm ( we had a grabber, which didnt work, so we scrapped it to a skewer). then we had to figure out how we would put the tetras on to get the most points and the best strategy for getting rows. Everyone on the team had an idea and we needed to figure out how we would get the best one and incorporate the ones we could.

I think you cant spend only one day on strategy, maybe 2 if you really focus and get a simple game. but last year we spent 3 days on a giant fan idea....:ahh:

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Now I see the problem is I have a different definition of strategy than other people, it seems.

Lets look at 2006. I'd define strategy as deciding whether to shoot for the center goal, or roll balls in the lower goal. Shoot from ontop the ramp or on the bottom of the ramp. Stuff like that. What I want the robot to do, not how I want to do it.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Ah, well if thats it, then yes, thats something that shouldnt take more than a day or 2 :D

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

I'll give a bit more detail on 116s process.
Kick-off: Full team meets (along with alumni, members of the community and school) to watch the kick-off. Short discussion afterwards. Most of the team goes home, but some stay (mainly leadership and alumni) to mock-up game pieces field elements. EVERYONE is expected to have read sections 3, 4 & 5 (typically the Game, Robot, and Tournament) of the manual by the next day.

Day 2: Full team meeting. Begins with brief recap of game. Most of the day is spent playing "Stu-Bots" (where students enact potential designs and strategies) and discussing (lots of discussing) the results.

The remainder of Week 1 is spent broken into small groups brainstorming and going through basic designs.

Week 2 is reaching a final design. It involves selecting a robot and strategy (as each group has assessed the game differently, but the "strategy team" often has great weight in determining which design we select). Our actual design typically involves systems from different designs to maximize the total effect. Detailed design on components begins at the end of the week.

Week 3 is component design (and the beginning of fabrication if time permits). Each subgroup produces designs for their system, and feeds them to a central "integration" (CAD) group to ensure there are no conflicts with other systems. We should also have our frame welded by the end of week 3.

Weeks 4 is almost purely fabrication (with some assembly if we use off the shelf or KoP parts).

Week 5 is finishing fabrication, assembly, and integration of the systems.

Week 6 is finishing assembly and integration, testing, and driver training.


We try to get a lot accomplished during the first weekend for several reasons. One of the key ones being that many alumni are in town before their next semester start, and often like to attend meetings. They are a terrific resource for both doing manual labor (such as field construction) and robot and strategy design. More we can abuse them, the better!

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

We take so long because we tend to get more detailed than that. We ask questions like "How many should we shoot in auto mode?" "Where should we shoot from to have the best accuracy?" "What is the minimum number of balls to shoot to guarantee the win in Automode (including an assement of what we think other teams will do)"

Last year we decided to shoot from the floor partly because we weren't sure we could get on the ramp accurately in automode. That decision was made before we started designing the robot and strongly influenced our shooter design.

Our team is having a session on Systems Engineering this evening. Our "wrong" turns last year will be a major part of the discussion. There were definitely some areas where we made wrong choices and others where we over estimated our capabilities or pursued a solution long after it had become obvious it wasn't working the way it needed to.

Each year has its own subtleties. For 2005 we specifically designed our robot to be good not just at placing tetras, but at placing tetras on the far corner goal, because we felt that was the most strategic position. We could mess up as many as three rows with a single tetra. This could lead to wild swings in the score, especially towards the end of the match when our opponents had limited time to counter. It is difficult to do the sort of detailed analysis that leads to this sort of conclusion in just a couple of hours.

Especially if the Game Design Committee is doing their job right.

ChrisH

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Another mentality that many teams pursue is the adaptation of their strategy once other teams reveal their designs. There is, and always will be, something you didn't think of that another team did. The logic many teams have is leaving their strategy and design open ended and flexible enough that they can account for and adapt to the game playing out in a way they didn't anticipate.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

This year, off-season, we meet one night a week for 2 hours, build crew sometimes more depending on what our college mentor has in store for us:]
We also help out a Lego league team, we help when ever they have meetings.

In past years during build season, we met 2-3 times a week for 2 hours. As ship date got closer it became a little more. This year I think that we will be meeting a little more, only so we aren't drilling holes in our robot at 1 AM or later on ship date.

I can not wait until January 6th!! Good luck to everyone as you start imaging your robot.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Getting back to the poll at hand.... Its a kinda of a vague question and the results will depend on the resources and experience of your team. For some rookie teams, I'd encourage getting something built within the first couple of weeks. Veteran teams and those with more resources can spend 3 weeks "planning" before they start building. In 2003, our third year, we spent the first 2 weeks planning and designing and CAD the entire bot - it was cool and our robot came out looking cool, but just didn't perform that well. It's also the only year we never made it to the championship rounds at any of the three regionals we attended.

So now we focus heavily on prototyping our ideas and possible designs in weeks 1 and 2. By week 3 we shift into the actual robot design and some CAD where needed. Depending on the CAD ability of my students, only some of the robot is done in CAD. Last year we had an overall inventor model, with detailed modeling done of the transmissions and such. By Week 4 the robot frame is will get finished and fabricate any manipulators. Week 5, finish manipulators and assemble it together. By Thursday of Week 6, the robot should be complete and wired. The next four days are spent practicing and programming.

I can't stress the importance that building actual working prototypes during the design process has had on our robots the past few years. Use wood and pvc to mock up a shooter or arm. We have FP motors and their plastic transmissions ready with sprockets already bolted on to their output hubs, ready for testing out ideas and designs. We also have a protobot that is a kit bot drive base with extra speed controllers, relays, soleniods and air tanks already in place so that if we want to see how an arm may behave we can quickly clamp it or bolt it on the protobot and test in just one day.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Thanks again for the input everyone,

Doug G, I don't think its a vague question, I was curious and wondered how much time teams spend planning, I'm not asking for a recommendation on how long my team should plan, just how long your team spends planning.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Coug, it's just my opinion that "planning" refers to a lot of specific benchmarks by many teams, which probably helps explain the results of the poll. Planning could be brainstorming, pencil and paper sketches, strategy, CAD/Inventor/3DS modeling, purchasing, prototyping, etc... I interpretted the question to involve all of this. I think some interpretted the question as just first few items on my list which is why there is much discussion on how much teams do during their "planning". Good question and has brought about a lot of dialogue :)

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

One day at a time, one day at a time... ;)

We're just a little disorganized.

Re: How long does your team plan?
 

Ah, so it was a case of me misunderstanding you misunderstanding me.

What i was trying to ask was what planning(whatever method your team uses) and how long you spend, before starting to build the final robot.

Sorry for the confusion.