View Single Post
  #7   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 03-01-2013, 08:23
IKE's Avatar
IKE IKE is offline
Not so Custom User Title
AKA: Isaac Rife
no team (N/A)
Team Role: Mechanical
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Rookie Year: 2003
Location: Michigan
Posts: 2,151
IKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond reputeIKE has a reputation beyond repute
Re: Philosophies on design reuse

Quote:
Originally Posted by ToddF View Post
For the first time, our team has managed to do some serious development work during the off-season. We have debated internally about how best to utilize what we have learned while staying both within the letter and the spirit of the design reuse rules. ....
ToddF,
I concur with others on congratulations on doing some off-season work to make your team better.
While the rule seems pretty clear cut, some of the blue box examples make it otherwise.
Also keep in mind that FIRST sponsors BETA Test teams to test the software. Some things they learn will get rolled out to other teams, but not every detail.

I think the strong feelings that differ on this topic may stem from a difference between Academia and Corporate world. In academia, if you use someone else’s thoughts to explain a position without referencing it, then you are plagiarizing. This position puts an interesting emphasis on original work.
Often on engineering projects, you are requested to use "Lessons Learned", re-use internal designs that have been validated, or attempt "Commonality".

When these two cultures read the same rule, they have slightly different interpretations. I would almost guarantee you that at certain regionals, if you did a big sales pitch in the pits about "commonality", "design libraries", and using TDS (Toyota Development System) principles of reusing reliable designs you could likely win a Quality of Industrial Design award. Winning awards doesn't make it right, but it does speak to the disconnect of some views on this subject, and what industry professionals (often the biggest chunk of Judges) would love for students to be able to bring to the table.

One of my favorite students to go through our program was obsessed with originality his first two years. He designed some really neat but fairly impractical designs. We talked to him about benchmarking and paying attention to good design details. Having Form follow Useful Function (most of his early designs were more about unique Form to create novel function). The stuff he churns out now is really impressive. On the surface it may look like something you have seen before, but the details are really impressive.

Per "apalard's" post about re-using, to my knowledge, the closest we came to re-using a major system was the chassis project of 2010 and our competition chassis of 2011. They were really close but arguably different in many, many, many aspects. That being said, our 2006, 2007, 2008 chassis were all 6x6 sheet metal designs with dead axles and shiftable transmissions. The architectures were similar (especial 2007 and 2008) but all the design details were different.

Ultimately, your team will have to figure out where their comfort is.

Oh, and I would recommend not doing a swerve drive for the first time during the build season. FYSS (First Year Swerve Syndrome) is a well documented condition that has the symptoms of early delusions of grandeur followed by countless headaches, sleeplessness, depression, irritability, and in some cases I have seen it be fatal (to a team).