[EricH]

Originally Posted by Wing

This year our mechanical lead student only used L-channel and 80/20 because of the ease of building, and how you can design around the build. When he heard about 1311's robot being fabricated outside and being amazingly done, he said "That's not fun, I like solving problems while building, that's more fun". Fabricating is fun, but fabricating without a design is foolhardy. I think that this attitude needs to be reversed.

He's almost right. Solving problems while building is not more fun after this competition, however. The real-world version of that (without the boss's response to such a quote if said aloud) follows...

"I like solving problems while building, that's more expensive." And that, my friends, is why you CAD thrice, measure twice, and cut once (and then cut again on any identical parts), and measure again once you're done cutting.

Do a cost add-up. Figure minimum wage for every student, and normal wages for the mentors. Figure out how much the season cost in labor and materials. Now, subtract any material wasted by building something wrong and any time wasted fixing something that was built wrong (and the associated man-hour cost). I think the results might surprise everyone on the team.

There's nothing wrong with building then designing, if you don't mind wasting money and time, and not getting a real-world engineering experience.