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Unread 19-07-2004, 23:10
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Arrow Re: Creating and selling parts.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sanddrag
I personally think a big part of the build challenge is finding certain pre-made parts, finding suppliers, and working with suppliers. Not everything in real engineering project is custom either.
Sanddrag... so true!

I got a big reality check this summer when I started designing a lot of components from scratch for a project at work. I was stuck in the FIRST mode of building everything from scratch.

The more time I spend in industry, the more I realize that engineering consists a lot of taking imperfect products and modifying them to meet your application. I see a lot of teams (461 included!) that builds too many things from scratch.

When I was at IRI a couple weekends ago, I heard Dr. Joe talking to a few people about the gearboxes that 47 modified and used on their machine. His resounding theme was "Don't try to redo engineering work that's already been done that meets the needs of your application."

Second thought:

I see a lot of people posting concerns about the slippery slope of this idea. I think the fears are a bit far fetched.

Let's be realistic. Would a team ever try to design, market, manufacture and ship something so custom to a game as an arm in a 6 week build period? I can't see any team thinking, "We'll build everything else and then throw on the arm we bought from team 112 the last week."

A shifting gearbox? Sure.
A frame? 80-20 already does it.

An arm, ball scoop, stacker, hanger? No way, it's just too complicated, and not worth the the headaches to do a little fundraising. I mean, how much would you try to sell an arm for? We're talking probably thousands of dollars. With the $5,000 cap.. I don't see a lot of room for that.

Just my 2 cents,

Matt
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