Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

[sanddrag]

I used to approach robot building with the "just cut it here" or "drill it oversize so it'll fit right" attitude but no more.

I have been enlightened by the teams who create these professional grade masterpieces and now I'm on a quest to do the same, and hopefully have a few others join me.

I don't look down upon the "popular" teams with all their fancy anodizing and whatnot. Heck no. I look up to them and think "hey, that can be MY robot. I CAN DO THIS!" All it takes is a little determination.

[Andrew Blair]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I used to approach robot building with the "just cut it here" or "drill it oversize so it'll fit right" attitude but no more.

I have been enlightened by the teams who create these professional grade masterpieces and now I'm on a quest to do the same, and hopefully have a few others join me.

I don't look down upon the "popular" teams with all their fancy anodizing and whatnot. Heck no. I look up to them and think "hey, that can be MY robot. I CAN DO THIS!" All it takes is a little determination.

Ultimately its your own experience which pushes you as a person, not neccessarily as a team, to build a better robot. What makes a robot look pretty is time and precision. Quality also gets improved through these virtues. When a person, not a team, gets fed up with cruddy parts, they spend a little more time on things. Trust me, in crude situations, I have seen a $20 drill do work that rivals a mill. Now, the neat little "306" machined into everything is a little harder.... So it really does come down to inspiration- in this case the inspiration to do better work! Functionality rarely has anything to do with aesthetics.