[IanW]

Thank you for your response!
I would like to refine my questions in a couple ways, and would appreciate hearing from more perspectives.

How do you know when a prototype can feasibly work with proper refinement vs. when it needs to be abandoned? For example, was there some general criteria in your mind this year such as "if this mechanism can shoot the proper distance, it is viable"?
Any tips for avoiding false positives, or even false negatives?

How do you ultimately choose which prototype your team will refine as the final product, especially when their capabilities are rough and not necessarily representative of what a refined mechanism will be capable of? How do you compare solutions whose true capabilities are unknown?

I am interested in hearing about teams' approach after they have chosen a single design to refine.
Some of the original questions are better suited for this stage in the design process, specifically:
• How can teams decrease their turnaround time on iterative design refinement?
• How do you compare the mechanism's capabilities from iteration to iteration when the differences may be minute without time consuming experimentation?
• Does a prototype need to work as well as you expect the final manipulator to before you begin final production? What differentiates a prototype from the finished product?
• How long is your team willing to prototype before entering final production?