How do you make design decisions as a "team"?

[Peggy Painter]

Originally Posted by Techhexium

I recommend you read JVN's "Using the Engineering Design Process for Design of a Competition Robot" paper. Although there is no "right" way to approach the design process, it will help you gain an understanding of how it could be done.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2303

Also, his 2010 build journal can show the design process in action. It's a supplement to the first paper.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2360

AH, HA!!! Reading John's paper cleared up a lot of my questions. Now if I can only get the rest of the mentors & youth to read it. Thank you for directing it my way.

[Peggy Painter]

[quote=Grim Tuesday;1065666]During this time, we would like people to be thinking of how the game works, but in invariable breaks down into "this would be a cool robot" discussions. We would like to, this year, play a "practice game" in which each person assumes the role of a robot, and the team observes, to see how the game is played, though our team has never done this before.........Lastly, a few tips. I try to come up with the worst ideas possible the break the ice in the design discussion. It lightens the mood and gives students more courage to present thier ideas since they can not do worse than their mentor

QUOTE]

Excellent suggestions about team design organization. I think I want to get them to play a practice game during the first few days of the competition. I think the kids & the mentors understand now, how important it is to fully understand the game by the first Tuesday or Wednesday of the competition. BTW...I totally understand about lightening the mood with unusual design ideas. Thanks for your help, Peggy

[Katie_UPS]

One of the biggest influences for me, as far as design process, comes from material published by 1114 (simbotics). If you aren't aware, these guys are known for producing robots that dominate year after year.

I suggest the Strategy and Robot Design powerpoints. http://www.simbotics.org/resources/workshops

As far as getting kids involved, remind them that this is their robot. I still don't know how to get kids interested if they aren't, but those who are, just tell them to speak up. No one bites (hard, atleast).

To avoid any emotional-attachment issues, make sure its clearly stated that "We aren't using your design because we don't like you: we aren't using your design because its not whats best for the team". Remind everyone that "we are working for what's best for the team, not what's best for our egos."

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Peggy Painter

This has been our rookie year and, as of last night, our team is still eating meals together so we're not too bad off.....however, as the group leader (and a NEMO! ) my big challenge has been trying get the group--kids & adults to communicate their ideas and to make group decisions, especially on design matters.

I'm trying to keep our group a kid-led group, however the kids aren't technically skilled enough or developmentally ready to do everything and I'm afraid that when adults make suggestions the kids are reluctant to contribute. And I have noticed that kids & adults (myself included) can get emotionally attached to our design ideas.

How do other teams work through the process of developing a design & build plan?

Is there a standard process amongst engineers for collaborating on team building projects?

Do any of you mentors go to sleep at night after a meeting and NOT wake up in the wee hours concerned about how things went?

In the real world, it is very rare to find a group of equally skilled and developmentally ready people. You always have varying levels of experience, from the wise engineer who has been with the company for thirty years to the young engineer who just picked up their degree off the printing press and still has a problem finding their desk in the morning.

When an issue or design decision arises, would you hold both of these people's opinion with the same regard? No! The proverbial 'new guy' hasn't been around a long enough time to really pick up enough knowledge to be as useful as the 'old guy.' However, 'new guy' still gets a seat at the table and a chance to talk. The simple fact of the matter is that varying levels of experience inherently weight the opinions of some. It's foolish to equally weight everyone's input and vote. (I think John goes into some detail about 'vote is four letter word' in his white paper)

IMO, adults leading design sessions is absolutely 'OK', and in most cases probably the best thing you can do. 'Forcing' participation and breaking up into small groups is probably the best way to get everyone contributing. In a way you want people to grab and hold onto ideas -- that really gets the discussion going. After kickoff we did 'Big Picture' stuff as a very large group (and everyone had to say at least one thing), and then broke up into smaller groups to do more detailed work. These focus groups would then present their concepts to the larger group, and everyone had time to think about them and comment/question.

(As 'new guy' at work I just listen to every one around me talk, and I've never learned so much so quickly.)