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Originally Posted by boiler
It is a delicate balancing act - when do we allow the students to try something we know will fail, but the experience will make them better.
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That is a tough question. Ive seen so many engineering prototypes or concept demonstrations in which the designer shows you a system that is sort of doing what he says it can do
and there is always a reason why its not working exactly right (when we get the real optics the image will not be blurry, the real electronics wont glitch like that, its overheating but we will use a bigger fan....). When you hand them a bunch of money, and they build the 'real' system, guess what? The problems are still there.
An engineer should be able to tell you if something is going to work or not before it is built. Every system has inputs and outputs. If you cannot explain clearly how the outputs are derived from the inputs, then you have not thought things through all the way.
There is a time for tinkering and building mockups and experimenting, but at this point in the project you should have a clear path to a functional robot.
Small failures and setbacks along the way are ok, as long as you have a plan B. Showing up at a regional with a fancy 130 pound statue violates the prime directive for mentors: no matter what, dont let your team fail (show up at a regional with dead robot).