Quote:
Originally Posted by Sid323
You mentioned having a working robot in two weeks; how did you decide the design by then, especially considering your large number of rookies? Did you get a large number of members just building by then? Our team usually has had tedious design meetings that can extend into the second or even third week which involve everyone sitting and debating different design ideas (which is part of the reason why we are looking at agile).
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One of the things that I found REALLY helps is that immediately after kickoff, we go to the offices of our sponsor (my former employer, I've moved on but I'm still involved with the team, almost the only mentor on the team NOT employed by them) and brainstorm designs. The output of that meeting is a shortlist of 2-3 designs that we think will work well. Then we start prototyping with wood, and figuring out what does and doesn't actually work. Occasionally we'll have to go back to the drawing board, but not that often I've found.
Keep in mind that this is a team that is based in NYC, lacks pretty much any mechanical engineering mentors, and has the stupid restrictions that the NYC public school system places on us. Are we the most competitive robot out there? No. But do we field something that at least I'm proud of every year? Yeah.