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Originally Posted by KenWittlief
If that is the case I think FIRST should really strike the word "design" from the rules "after the kickoff"
and replace it with 'fabricate and assemble" because that is what they really mean.
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Something like that is in order, just for the sake of clarity. As a result of <R15>, design and construction of prototypes is unlimited—so anything that's designed before kickoff is a prototype, until it is designated to become part of the robot on or about the kickoff day (when actual fabrication of the part begins).
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Originally Posted by KenWittlief
The only risk I see from doing this is that you might 'design' a robot in september that will use motors or other parts that will not be in this years KOP (due to changes), or parts that might not be on the allowable parts list, but based on past experience that risk is very low.
So why dont we stop pretending? Why do some many teams wait until the kickoff to really get started? We can design base frames and drive trains, and accutators, and control systems, and sophisticated sensors with complex electronics, work out all the bugs, get all our drawings ready for Jan 3rd to hand to a machinst
and then at most all that will be left to do is design a ball shooter mechanism to bolt to the rest of the robot (the prototype we already have 2 copies of), or a pole grabber, or a ball hopper, or a platform pusher...
if we do this, at least 75% of the robot can be designed and ready to go by Jan 3rd! Why do we kill ourselves every year, trying design and build a robot in only 6 weeks, when we can really spend 52 weeks on the drawing/brainstorming/CNC setup/electronics schematics/programming/parts purchasing... part of the design cycle?
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Many teams do exactly this. Of course, like you said, they do take the risk that the prototypes don't meet the next year's requirements, but that's the risk that they take, to put themselves 3 weeks ahead for the next season.