[Dan Petrovic]

I learned that no one person can do anything alone.

Especially when it comes to designing the robot.

We had two guys designing different sections of the robot. One did the chassis, one did the arm and manipulator. They didn't have anyone looking over their shoulders so a bunch of mistakes were made.

Also, we calculated the torque required to drive our arms based off of estimates we were given by the CAD guys. Then we (and by we I mean one person) looked at Banebots to see which gearboxes would give us enough torque to power them. However, not realizing that fisherprice motors only run with 20 amps of power and now 60, the gearboxes we ordered weren't strong enough to lift the arm.

Had someone else been working with that person, that could have been avoided and we could have had a completed robot a week earlier.

Also. If you're going to have a welded frame, make sure critical holes are drilled before hand. We suffered because we didn't drill holes to mount certain things in the aluminum peices before they were sent to get welded. We pretty much had to buy a right-angle drill to drill the holes we needed.

Hardware in CAD is just as important as everything else. It make look like it fits on the model, but the hardware might not. That happened several times this year.

No one knows if this is true, but the first wheels were could have been squares. That didn't work too well so then they came up with round wheels. Making mistakes is a huge part of learning.