Thread: Team Update 2
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Unread 13-01-2017, 15:44
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Re: Team Update 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by SenorZ View Post
Once robotics becomes an exercise in linguistics and semantics, we've lost our way.

Instead of saying, "Hmmm, having my robot climb a rope is a challenge. Lets see if we can do that."

Teams are saying, "Hmmm, attaching to and climbing up Material X is easier than rope, and provides less of a challenge. Let's see if we can use Material X."

While there's nothing wrong with this, technically, it is not in the "spirit" of the challenge. As a teacher, I give game/challenge projects to my students. Every year I need to field a variety of "why can't I..." questions because they want to bend the challenge to meet their design preference. I know this is NOT the same thing as the "velcro controversy", but it has the same flavor.

Go to the rope section at Home Depot. If there is a spool of Velcro there, you have an argument.
I would go the other way with it. As a professional engineer, requirements are everything. You design to requirements... and sometimes the requirements are ambiguous, or your understanding of those requirements doesn't match the understanding of the product owner. I always look for the easiest way to implement a set of requirements - it'll be quicker and more reliable than a complex way. Heck, just today at work I was having a discussion with a product owner that disagreed with my design, because my design included text that wrapped from one line to the next. There was nothing in the requirements that prevented that, and in the design I felt it gave the best presentation. So, now we're looking at alternative solutions as we work together to modify the requirements.
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