"How to Build your Everything Really Really Fast"

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Ether

That's the way I've always looked at it.

And they usually get lots of feedback and they learn something. And have fun doing it.

To me it is more dangerous when they are implementing some system on their competition, but don't understand the inherent trade offs present; they just do it because they saw someone else do it. (Worst offenders of this, IMHO? Swerve Drive. Mecanum Wheels. West Coast Drive.)

I do like it when someone posts a design, mentions one of those generalities and is asked "WHY?" by someone else (Ether, you seem to be the one asking that a lot these days.)

Oops... we hijacked a thread.
The original linked Instructable is really cool! It contains a few really great nuggets of wisdom!

-John

[AllenGregoryIV]

I've been following Charles' blog for a while now. He has some very cool design break downs and this guide is great as well.

One of the things he links to is the Fundamentals of Design by Professor Alexander Slocum (He's an FRC mentor by the way). I found it about a month ago and have been going through the whole course. For anyone that didn't have formal mechanical engineering training it's a fantastic guide to design. I got to learn the names of a bunch things that I've sort of figured out over the years but never knew they had names.