[Karibou]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

BINGO... ie DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!! If any regular team spent 3 weeks prototyping, they would be in a world of hurt because their parts would never get finished in time to even build a robot. I know this because in 2006 1511 spent that 3 weeks prototyping, and finally abandoned all prototypes and went with a concept we figured would work, no design, we just built it... fortunately we survived, but we most certainly did NOT come out with an elegant machine, and did not have enough test or programming time. Dmentor hit it on the head, its that they have trained their students and team so well on design, and have great manufacturing support and capability, and THAT allows them to prototype for that long to come up with the best solutions. Until you get to that level of engineering process, in my mind you CANNOT spend 3 weeks prototyping or you will shoot yourself in the foot.

Seconded. We spent 3 weeks prototyping last year (some things were designed during the process, though), and we barely got a somewhat-working robot in the bag. Even then, we still made a lot of tweaks - particularly in the code - at Kettering, which was our first competition. We had no practice time before bag, which, while unfortunately normal for us, is definitely something that would hurt a lot of teams. We managed to catch up with ourselves at Detroit, but Kettering was not a fun experience. Don't do it, folks!