Our design process is whiteboard --> sketch on paper --> CAD spacial representations to get critical dimensions/relations --> Prototype --> Prototype even more --> CAD critical subsystems --> Build, test & integrate. It's amazing we even have that since every one of our mentors, myself included, do software in our careers
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We're still learning, and we get hung up on not using solutions that we can't fully envision working for us...even when we're staring at a video of it on Youtube (prime examples this year are our conveyor belt & shooter). We also hate settling for less because we're unwilling to put the effort into venturing into the unknown...that is, it's unknown for us. So really it boils down to the fact that if we don't
know something will work or exactly how it will work, it's impossible for us to CAD something with any detail before we prototype it...but we will prototype it to near perfection! We really spend most of our time in the shop improving our prototypes before we do a final CAD on them. Drawings are sometimes made while in the shop, then added to whatever CAD models we have later. It's not really healthy for students to use a computer when they have aluminum shavings all over their clothes anyways
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Hopefully our "poof, here's your robot" day will be tomorrow since we took so much extra time to prototype & design
. Cheers!