Quote:
Originally Posted by cxcad
I had no idea about the scope of your project. The kids on the team are definitely not there yet. Why the router, when the team has so many sponsors? I guess lead time. Did 973 take a similar development process?
|
Lead time is definitely a large part of it. For getting parts back from sponsors, often the best we can do for large quantities of parts is 2 weeks. With the router, that time is shortened substantially. It also allows us to raise the quality of our prototyping and allow for some more iteration during build season. Sponsors are great, but we don't get an unlimited amount of parts from them. Having a router allows us to make some parts, try them out, and then change things up if necessary. In the past, we've had to get a design as final as possible before sending parts out to be made, since we had limited ability to make substantial mods once the parts where shipped. We plan on continuing to work closely with sponsors to get some parts made, but we will start to make some in house. We also have a press brake that allows us to bend the sheetmetal parts once they come off the router.
I'm not as familiar with 973's development process, but we were certainly able to learn from the problems they ran into. They were a big help.