Ruling on Robonauts Balance

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

The same way engineers do when given design specifications. The English language is imprecise, but "can't grab, grasp, or grapple" is at least highly indicative of the customer's design specs. If an engineer comes up with a solution that can be argued to not grab, grasp, or grapple, and yet it can be argued to do so as well, they'd better be prepared to suck up the opportunity cost of having designed/built that mechanism, because the customer might reject it.

Part of the whole design and specification process involves discussions with the customer, right? RFI's, design reviews, discussions of scope of work, all that fun stuff. It seems to me that the Q&A serves the same purpose in our FRC world. So I'll ask again in terms more familiar to you. How would you react if you went to a design review and the customer shrugged and mumbled about your fancy, innovative design?

On one hand, you can move forward with your innovative design that you think meets all their specifications. And risk them seeing the finished product and declaring that that isn't at ALL what they were thinking, didn't you hear them mumble that?

On the other hand, you can take the most defensive and restrictive interpretation possible of the specifications, and reach a design that couldn't possibly be a problem. At the expense of forgoing any real innovation or creativity in your solutions. But at least you won't have any nasty surprises in store for you.

On the gripping hand, none of this angst, indecision and heartache would have been necessary if the customer simply held up his end of the deal and actually provided you with information and input on his expectations. If they simply actually answered your question clearly the first time you asked it instead shrugging and declaring the can't comment.