More of a story than a quote, but it happened at yesterday's build session, and it has a couple of quotables in it:
Background: The "swoosh" is a custom curved polycarbonate piece of our robot that pushes gears onto the peg (meaning it reaches outside of the frame perimeter). T is a "practical" mentor, J is a veteran sophomore who is taking on leadership roles, and (duh) I'm G2.
G2: Why are you making another swoosh? We haven't tested the first one.
T: The first one broke.
G2: It broke? How?
T: It fell on the floor.
G2: (to J) Did you use polycarb or acrylic?
J: ??
G2: Lexan or plexiglass?
J: Polycarb.
G2: Are you sure? Polycarb is pretty hard to break.
J: Well, it did fall kind of weird...
G2: If it were polycarb, it would probably survive being run over by a car. Is that from the same sheet?
J: (Nod)
G2: Let's start over..
(Later, after I broke the first swoosh about six more times by hand, broke the rest of that sheet by foot and tossed it in the trash, and a lexan version was complete - cut much faster using a jigsaw, which did not work at all on the acrylic)
G2: (Bending it in hand), Yes, this feels a lot less stiff than the other one. The other one broke here (bent about 15-20 degrees). This one goes to here (at least 3x as far) no problem. OK. (Full windup and throw piece at floor of workshop as hard as I can.)
J:
G2: Hey, it didn't break, did it? Would you rather find out that it breaks on the floor of the workshop or on the floor at Bayou?
J: 