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Originally Posted by dlavery
Hmmmm.... I am getting even further convinced that any group that goes down this road will quickly discover the point of diminishing returns.
I'm thinking about 300 studnets and 30 engineers, spread across 10 different locations, working on the same project, trying to set interface standards for at least 10 different subsystems, establishing production procedures for at least 10 copies (20 if you want a spare robot, 30 if you want spare parts) of everything, setting up communications infrastructures, the required layer of management and bureaucracy to get everything coordinated, shipping and logistics for all the parts, quality control for the production runs, new facilities needed for parts production (you are no longer in "one-off" mode here), etc. etc etc.
Then there is the fact that you need to get 330 team members to agree to the design approach (that will take at least two weeks of negotiation - just try to get a group that size to agree on ANYTHING). At least 30 engineers need to converge on the design details (there goes another ten days). Develop the interface specifications (one week), and control theory. Assuming you actually want to practise with your completed robot for at least 48 hours, that least one week for actual construction of parts, shipping them around the country, assembling and integrating them, finding out the specs were wrong, and iterating through the whole thing at least one more time. They are going to spend most of their $300,00 budget just on paperwork, logistics, communications and shipping. The net investment in the actual robot should be about $1.97.
As I said before, if some group wants to go through all that, I say "BRING IT ON!!!  )
-dave |
This hits the nail on the head doing a project with one other team is hard enough. You might be able to bring a third team into the mix but it would take a very special group to make that work.
For those of you who know team 60 we try to get our design and strategy complete seven to ten days after kick off, and our robot complete in week four. This year we were more than two weeks into the design and we finished up on the night before we shipped.
When you are building four robots you do save some time because of increased production quantities, but don’t forget we are proto typing at the same time so when something goes wrong you have to fix it four times and believe me this happened.
Was the project a success? Absolute both team 60 and 254 learned many valuable lessons. We had to work had but we had a lot of fun designing and building together and I believe I can speak for both teams when I say we would do it again.
I’m a businessman in Kingman, my competitors know when we go head to head for a job that I’m a tough competitor, but they also know if they need help they can count on us. This is what has made us successful company.
If we are going to put man on Mars and learn more about the creation of the Universe or find a cure for cancer and so on. It will take people working together and I believe this is one of the most important aspects I can share with my students.
I do not think you will ever see ten of the same robots nor do I believe you will see many team take this to the level that our two teams did.
As JFK said we did not do this because it was easy, we did it because it was hard.