why blame the programmers??

[thefro526]

If I may make a suggestion for some of those that are on either side of the Programming vs. Mechanical Blame Game:

Communication is key, especially with something like Mechanical and Programming. A large portion of Programming can be done without a Robot in front of you, I'd estimate something like 80%-90%. Mechanical should communicate the design to the Programmers as early as possible so that the Programmers can begin writing code, so that once the robot is completed it's just a matter of tuning the code and making minor changes.

This year, once our Design was settled, I went to the head programmer and outlined all of the robots functionality, I told him the number of motors, how they would be driven (relay vs. speed controller), planned sensor feedback, autonomous Strategy, Pneumatic Layout, etc etc. This gives he and his team a solid two to three weeks to code, if not longer, which should help keep them from being stressed out once the robot is done because the bulk of the code should already be written. I'd suggest teams that haven't done this should do it soon.

That doesn't mean I'm going to stop blaming the programmers when things go wrong though...