Quote:
Originally Posted by dmoody92
Thank you all for your input. I'm going to talk to our student team leader and try to have a meeting with them.
I know that we should have put an end to this earlier but the thing was, at first it was really small and he said that this would be totally non-intrusive to the main design, it would be worked on outside of our build time and would only be used if our initial design totally didn't work. Since some time has passed and they had a little more progress to the design, his demeanor totally changed and went to this test.
Honestly, there is no way they could get it up and running in the next few days. All they have is a frame with two wheels, and the big worm gear that will be the auger, but there is no electronic integration at all, and no program. Our programming team consist of two people, myself and another kid (who frankly has no idea how Lab View works yet). It's hard enough for me to not knowing what lab view was before the build season, but to make two fully functioning robots is just impossible for me, and I am not going to make two very weak programs just so that they both have something.
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Just for the sake of playing devils advocate on this whole thing, I do not know what your sponsorship position is but generally schools and sponsors want winning teams. Face it, shiny trophies make people happy (I know it makes me happy but I am amused by simple things like that). Your mentor may be under pressure from sponsors or the school. I believe that airing your dirty laundry in a public forum was not the proper move. If you feel you really need to I would use the Anonymous board here. Remember, every post you make reflects on you, your team, your school, and your sponsors. I am not saying this reflects badly merely reminding you of the implications of posting.
That being said...
Some teams are genuinely all about teaching and student involvement, some are more about winning. Having participated on teams that are about as drastically opposite as you can get (397 and 27) I can tell you that both ways have their merits and their demerits. Your team needs to decide what it wants to be, how important is winning? Is it more important than having the kids really love doing it? Can you do both? These are things that need to be decided. How does this solve your problem? If you want your students to feel involved and inspired by what THEY can do then you need to talk to your mentor and tell him that you guys feel passionate about your design, you worked very hard and feel that it should be given a fair shot instead of being crippled by dividing your efforts. If you decide winning is more important (nothing wrong with this thinking) then you do need to test both designs NOW. Not next week, not after build season, you need to test NOW. Testing doesnt mean having code, testing means manually driving the thing with a drill if you have to.
Also, if you need help feel free to PM me about the programming, Im not the best on here by any means but I am willing to try to help.
Best of Luck, I hope to hear wonderful things about your team in the future.