We work with NASA programmers, engineers, and machinists out at the KSC Prototype Lab, so even though our students do a lot of the calculations and drafting, i'd consider them both to be at the Extreme level.
Roccobot is completely designed from top to bottom and
everything inbetween in a program called Pro-Engineering, or Pro-E for short. (its kind of like CADD for those of you who know what that is... essentially, we build a complete three-dimensional model to an extremely accurate scale on this program before we even think of going to the machine shop) We know exactly how the robot looks and pretty much how it will work before we even think of taking a sheet of aluminum to the watercutter.
Just because we arent allowed to use the machinery out at NASA (due to liability issues) does not mean that our mentors build our robots for us. Although techinically they machine each unique part for us, we students are the ones who work on Pro-E and actually design the robot first. Then a mentor will look over what we've done, and together both the students and mentors will work to achieve perfection. If we machine something and it doesnt work, we go back to the drawing board and try again, but our goal is to never have to do something all over again. [Six weeks is not long enough, and we do not want to waste time by having to rework calculations just because something was off by five millimeters. We want to ensure that we conserve as much time as possible, so that our drivers can at least get a little practice time in before we ship the robot.] After each part is made, the members of our pit crew actually assemble to robot themselves, with very little if any aid from mentors, only using the Pro-E blueprints that we've printed out. This way, everyone on the pit crew knows exactly what goes where and how it all works, just in case something stops functioning after a match.
It's a lot of work, but its worth it.
