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Originally Posted by Max Lobovsky
Seems like people on CD are just out looking for something to be offended by. If there is anyone here who can't find significant design errors on every single robot in FIRST, they obviously don't know much about engineering or building robots.
Additionally, I didn't say categorically that the use of a material is bad, just that certain materials are commonly used incorrectly.
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Please define "design errors".
If a particular design meets requirements, then by the definition most professionals use, it is correct. If it doesn't meet requirements then it is not. Requirements should NOT be general, like "it won't break". They need to be specific as in "won't break when subjected to a load of 100N in a particular direction". The more numbers the better.
We generally develop a list of requirements for our robot each year. It will include things like "move across the field at 7 ft/s" or "lift 45 lbs of boxes to a height of 3ft in 3 seconds or less". If it meets the requirements (including cost, weight, and time to fabricate) then it is a CORRECT design. That isn't to say it is the BEST design. There will always be room for improvement, but you can spend your life analyzing to get the best result only to find when you look up that it is now next year and there is a new game.
We tell our students "In this game, if you meet your requirements, you win. BEFORE you ever take the field." After that everything else is gravy. (BTW you will win on the field a fair amount of the time as well if you have set your requirements correctly)
We started doing this systematically in 1999. I can't think of a robot since then that hasn't been a "winner", though some have done better in competition than others.
In saying that every FIRST robot has significant "design errors" (whatever they are by your definition) you are impugning the skills of a fair number of technical people who do this sort of thing for a living. Kind of like an apprentice telling a master he's doing it wrong. So don't be too upset if people take offense because, quite frankly, you have just been offensive.
But you're young and foolish (all of 17 is it?) so we won't hold it against you.
ChrisH