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One thing I like about my team is that the engineers just kind of point you off in a direction and the students pick up on that point and expand. In the early design stages, every student comes up with at least one drawing (done on a transparency to be presented on an overhead) of a robot or robot component they'd like to see on our 'bot. These aren't CAD drawings or anything close, they are just sketches. The team votes on the pieces we want, and then try to come up with an assembly for those pieces that will make the most sense.
The engineers come in and work a little ProE magic (since most of the students haven't even heard of CAD software) and come up with a base plan. Since we don't have any welding facilities on site, the only parts we get welded are done by an external fab shop and that is limited to major frame components (no sub-components unless they are of special importance - this year no sub-components were done off-site).
Then the students work closely with engineers and our AWESOME machinist to make parts for the 'bot. If the job was done poorly, or doesn't look nice, the job is used as our "prototype" and then the "final" is produced after the student knows what the part needs to look like. We basically only use the engineers as a quick reference for drill sizes (they usually respond, "Look at the chart. We have a nice chart RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRILL with drill sizes. I EXPECT THAT TO ME MEMORIZED BY TOMORROW!"), material recommendations, and their contacts for the different material vendors. Its funny because some people will come over and ask if a given part was done by an engineer just because it looks like a professional machined it and the person that built that part will point to their initials punched into the part. We are very proud of our work and the engineers & machinist don't let us get away with poor craftsmanship.
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