[Gary Dillard]

OK, I'm taking the opposing view (how stupid can I be to oppose Andy Baker) - I value Andy's opinion more than my own but I need to chime in on this.

If it's a question of the tone or the manner the criticism is presented, I agree - need to be careful in word selection. Unfortunately one of the limits of written critique is you can't tell what's a positive comment and what's negative since there's no voice inflection or facial expression.

However - I have been a design engineer for over twenty years and lead engineer for the past several. There is one point I hammer home to young engineers when we go into our design reviews both at work and on the team - don't become emotionally attached to your design. The intent of a design review is to improve the design, not to tell you what a great job you did. Sometimes that's a tweak; sometimes it means start over.

You should look at this as an opportunity to defend your design in a positive manner (without getting defensive), but don't be afraid or embarrassed to say you don't know or you didn't consider something. Here's some ways to respond:

"it looks good, but does it work?"

We built a prototype and it moved (pulled, turned, etc.) better than we expected.
It was a little slow but we changed the bearings and it's running very well now.

"that part looks too heavy, you need to lose weight"

My budget for this part was 6.5 pounds and I'm under that.
We needed this part to be robust because it's right in the front.

"that ratio looks way off. you should try... (yada yada)"

I checked my calculations again and we're operating well down on the power curve.
I checked my calculations again and it was a little high but the next size wouldn't fit in the envelope.

At the end of the process I frequently have changed the entire design because I liked someone elses ideas, and just as frequently I have considered all the critique and decided I was correct and pressed on. Either way, when you get to competition and something works well you can be proud of it.