Quote:
Originally Posted by alecmuller
Our typical method is to spend the 1st day of kickoff weekend reading the rules and then brainstorming game Strategy (i.e. what the robot needs to do, not what it looks like). For all brainstorming we break up the team into groups of 6-10 people (we found 50 students + 12 mentors was too many to get anything done) that are a mix of new & returning students & mentors, and also cross-functional (i.e. no groups of all-mech or all-coding). We pick Strategy as a team, then brainstorm for "robot elements" (i.e. a drivetrain style might be one element while a loader concept might be another), then a 3rd time for fully-integrated robots that have all the elements needed to execute the strategy.
Usually at the end of all that we're torn between 2 or 3 concepts, so we use what I think of as "sudden-death" prototyping. We split into groups that work separately on prototyping the leading concepts, and then as soon as 1 or more prototypes is ready, we meet as a whole team, review the prototypes (including whatever they have even if it's not finished) and vote to pick a concept or continue prototyping. Here's a video of the concept we picked last year on day 3 or so (without motors or software). Here's what we built for the day-17 robot. The final robot.
While prototypes can be time consuming, we find they usually settle design arguments MUCH faster than sketches and talking. |
We have a rather similar process where we also brainstorm on day one, followed by subteams working on separate prototypes. However, this is where we ran into trouble last season; we got stuck debating which design to pursue, and it caused some serious division in the team. I really like your idea of "sudden-death" prototyping; we might have to consider something similar this year.
As for the agile implementation, I think it would be best served by small groups adding layers of complexity to the system that they're working on. This would start during initial prototyping, and progress past the sudden-death stage where everyone agrees on an overall design to follow.