Quote:
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[...]Jobs had aimed for the simplicity that comes from conquering complexities, not ignoring them. "It takes a lot of hard work," he said, "to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions."
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Quote from
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
The key to a winning robot isn't simplicity and it isn't complexity. It's about finding an elegant solution that is only as complex as it needs to be. Start by redefining the problem you're trying to solve - what are the critical elements? What will be the difference (in terms of capability, speed, accuracy, etc) between a winning robot and everyone else? What sort of design delivers everything you need? How simple can you make it before sacrificing some of those critical elements? Complexity takes time, and we only have 6 weeks.
Take this year, for example. What are the underlying challenges? Was it picking up tubes quickly? Was it raising them from ground to the top row quickly? Was it accuracy of placement? Was it a fast minibot? Was it being able to lineup and deploy the minibot quickly? Was it all of these?