2363 feeder station robot loading

[ToddF]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Could you explain your process for comparing these two stacking methods?

For the seed tote method:
1) Place a seed tote where we think the stack will be.
2) Feed many, many, totes onto the seed tote from the feeder station, doing everything we can to make it mess up.
3) Add structure to prevent mis-stacking.
4) If structure looks practical, and mis-stacking is reduced to an acceptable level, or if structure is too complicated, stop and draw conclusions. Else, return to step 2.

For the floor loading method:
1) Load many, many, totes onto the floor from the feeder station, doing everything we can to make it mess up.
2) Add structure to make totes end up in the proper spot for stacking.
3) If structure looks practical, and mishaps are reduced to an acceptable level, or if structure is too complicated, stop and draw conclusions. Else, return to step 1.

Final step: Compare the structure/mechanisms required to make the two methods work, and choose to implement the method which works best with how we want to play the game and how the rest of the robot is shaping up.

This pretty much summarizes how we do all our prototyping. We try to fail quickly, tweak, and repeat. The trick when prototyping is to know when something is failing because it's a bad idea vs poor execution of a prototype. The students are often far to quick to discard a good idea because the first try doesn't work. Often, just the right tweak turns a complete failure into a complete success.

We live for those eureka moments. Whether we win or lose competitions, it's those moments when a student's idea makes something just "click" that will stick with them and influence them to become engineers.