Designing the Robot Schedule

[Pault]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

Give yourself a week to design everything - including prototypes and proofs of concept. Build in weeks 2 and 3, iterate in week 4 to finalize everything. Hand that off to programming, and build another exactly like it but without the 'mistakes', and that's what gets bagged in week 6. If you take 'exactly' to heart, your drivers can practice with that first robot (this is the key to a winning team BTW).

Sure, many of the top tier teams do this. But it is not necessary to be successful. And I would argue that for 95%+ of teams, this is unrealistic. And if your in that 95%+, trying to do this is going to hurt more than help. You will end up rushing your CAD so you can get people to start building. And a practice bot costs a lot of money. It would be better if you just took the time to do things right with one robot. Maybe finish it around week 4-5, and use the rest of the time for programming, driver practice, and iteration. And you can do very well.