Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperNerd256
I'd like to start this post by saying thank you for making this thread. I've been meaning to redo how our team does design for a while, and this gave me the initiative to start it. So, thank you.
Anywho, this is what I came up with:
Saturday (kickoff day):
-Discuss game
-Objectives
-Ways of scoring
-Possible Strategies
-Get the general game strategy locked in
-Make a strategy for both offense and defense
-Have people decide which subgroup they want to work in during the design period
Sunday:
-No team meeting
-Have team members brainstorm different designs for their subsystem
Monday (may go on to Tuesday):
-Whole team meets
-Break up into system subgroups, and start making a list of designs and details for each subsystem part
-Subgroups draw out and list the details of each mechanism, and pick their top 3
-Each subgroup presents their top 3 ideas to the entire team
-The whole team goes over the pros/cons of each design presented
-After a detailed pro/con of each part, the team does one of two things:
-1: Choose the best design out of 3 for each subgroup
-2: Eliminate one of each subgroup design and vote again on the remaining two
-By the end of Monday/Tuesday, there is 1 remaining design for each subsystem of the robot. The team then finalizes those designs with the more intricate details (how, what), and the design is semi-locked.
Semi-locked means that for the most part, you won't change anything, but you can if you need to.
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Your schedule is nice, but seems a tad bit rushed. An alternative to yours would be something like this;
On Saturday, concentrate on kickoff, and READ THE RULES. Do not discuss anything until reading the rules. Know your limitations. Know the game. Once that is done, start coming up with strategies. Make a priority list of what game elements you want to manipulate. There is a good example of this in HOT's technical documents;
http://frcteam67.dyndns.org/hot_Engi...Tech_Notes.pdf
On Sunday or Monday, make sure everyone is agreeing with the strategy. Vote is only a four letter word. You have to make sure everyone is unanimous with the decision on strategy. Voting is a last resort to come to a decision, never the first. Once that is done, you can divide people into subgroups and have them come up with concepts for each of the subsystems. The Drive Train should be decided first, as this is usually the easiest to decide and biggest hurdle.
Each concept should have a proof of concept or prototype, though with drivetrains, there are enough resources where a proof of concept isn't needed, and active prototyping would only be fore frame structure. The other subsystems should go through rapid prototyping in order to test the concept and to find an optimal efficiency of manipulating the game element. I like to refer to 118's 2006 week 3 video as an example of what I'm talking about
:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV_d1ChpyLg