Quote:
Originally Posted by DonRotolo
100% agreed. We actually give each person present a chance to speak by going in order around the room, perhaps 3-5 times over the course of a few hours. Some kids say "I have nothing to add that hasn't been said", OK, but speak now or forever hold your peace...
We do vote on the capabilities, and generally the most votes wins, but for ties and near ties we may shelve that choice for a day and revisit it.
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We used to do this, and found that our kids just really like to hear themselves talk, and they'll do it until the end of time if you ever let them start. They're really into overly-done never-ending debate. What we found over the years was that the team spent more time talking than building, and the robot quality and performance suffered as a result.
On voting for a design, I'd like to quote JVN here. In some post in a similar thread a while back, he said "Voting is not an engineering process. We will never vote on a design." After I read that, my entire philosophy of how to run a team changed, and it's clearly reflected in the improvements our team has made in the 2012 and later seasons.
Voting presumes everyone gets the same say in something and that everyone is equally qualified to have a say in something. This is simply not the case. We find voting to be a popularity contest, not a logical decision making process, and therefore we don't do it. The problem is, you get kids voting for things they are not capable of carrying out.
For our 2014 kickoff weekend, we have a big opportunity to get some work done, because we have Monday the 6th off school too. My goal is to finish machining all the bearing blocks, wheels, sprockets, and wheel axles by the end of Monday the 6th. I want to have jobs running in the CNC on kickoff day, and I'm taking a gamble on ordering material ahead of time to make this happen.