Quote:
Originally Posted by Pault
Sure, many of the top tier teams do this. But it is not necessary to be successful. And I would argue that for 95%+ of teams, this is unrealistic. And if your in that 95%+, trying to do this is going to hurt more than help. You will end up rushing your CAD so you can get people to start building. And a practice bot costs a lot of money. It would be better if you just took the time to do things right with one robot. Maybe finish it around week 4-5, and use the rest of the time for programming, driver practice, and iteration. And you can do very well.
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Paul,
We used to believe this as well, but deep investigation found it isn't true. As cadandcookies wrote, simple is the key. But there's more:
We don't have the rest of the team waiting for CAD...everyone is CAD. (But I will admit we build first and document later, kinda backwards from what we would prefer)
The second robot always comes out better than the first, so even if you re-use
all the expensive parts from the first robot you would still end up with a better robot in week 6, along with more time for programming. Fabrication goes quickly the second tme.
It is worth repeating: The key to a winning team is driver practice. Good drivers can compensate for a very poor robot.