Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseK
What is very aggravating about Ri3D is that too many things they put out are big distractions for my team. For the last 2 years we have fragmented into multiple "competing" designs because someone saw "ooh! shiny!" on a Ri3D bot.
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Exiting the idea phase is tricky to go into prototyping and going from prototyping to honing down to the final(ish) idea is challenging as well. Every year we have someone way too attached to their idea but unwilling develop it in CAD or prototyping.
I think this is a challenge no matter what. In addition to RI3D, we had a lot of concepts from 2008. We were referencing a bunch of team 1114, 16, 27, 118 and etc. We got stuck on a 1114 concept before realizing the puncher was too resource intensive for our machining.
We did limit the exposure to mostly the final video, which I think came out on tuesday? By then the bulk of our intial brainstorm is done, and most students know the rulebook.
However after that our issues transitioning to a final design is our fault. I would not blame RI3D for having a wall full of ideas and concepts. Some ideas had to die in the prototype phase, we could not invest enough resources to make El Toro work there is just not enough students and mentors to go around. Same with the boom done style launcher, quite a few people wanted it and we had to cut it because there was not enough time. Yeah, that was not a popular decision but we can't have the team split to make two poorly made launchers.
There will always be a time where too many ideas will bog down the team. We had a design spec, a time line and a priority list to hone down the clutter. there are several design we never got to try that I wished we had time for but I to put them on the chopping block and move on.