[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Doug Leppard

Key secret to 1902s last two years of success has been a loose but working project management.

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You can not afford with the 6 week schedule to do things serially, meaning complete hardware, then electrical then software then driving. They must work in parallel each getting things done so in the final weeks it comes together in a complete robotics system. This last year the robot base and arm were built in separate locations and done at the same time and then assembled together.

It is good to have someone that overlooks all of it and makes sure things are coordinated, needs not to be a master of any of the disciplines but have a feel for all of it. For if hardware is changed it may mean software must be change to adjust for it.

Being able to build the "subsystems" (arm, base, electronics, etc,) separately and have them come together requires some good systems engineering practices. You can think of this as the technical part of project management. The interfaces between the various robot assemblies need to be correct (and understood) otherwise the final week can be miserable...