[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by riptide

Like the real world, this person (usually only one) has the least amount of time to do their job because the hardware team went way over schedule to do the build.

Technically, if you are actually doing it like an actual control engineer would do things you have plenty of time. In all seriouness you shouldn't need the hardware to program the software. You do need the hardware to actually verify the programing is right but that should come after the robot is built.

Originally Posted by wireties

And because the mechanical guys can't get it through their head that the robot itself is part of the servo feedback. The software can't be fully tested w/o working hardware - the gyro does not work while the robot is shaking itself apart - etc, etc, etc Classic comment: It works perfectly on the stand but not on the ground!! It has to be a software problem. Hehehe...

Once again. You should be able to figure out if the robot is going to shake itself apart long before it was actually built. Its a bad design process because you are risking having the robot rip itself apart to pieces. I always wonder why this sort of behavior gets by in a competition that is mentored by engineers. There isn't a single field of engineering that doesn't actually design their control systems like this.