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Unread 20-10-2005, 12:57
KenWittlief KenWittlief is offline
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

Quote:
Originally Posted by sanddrag
Then I guess whoever was responsible for making the Segway an absolute masterpiece of art isn't a "real" engineer. They were only pretending then right?
I dont want you to feel like Im picking on you, but there is a distinction to be made here.

There are people assigned the task of making products look nice, cool, pretty... whatever the marketing people tell them it has to look like to increase sales. They are called industrial designer or graphical designers. I do not mean to belittle the work they do. It is important, and I personally do appreciate a product that looks like someone put some thought into its appearence and the human-factors aspects.

But that takes time and money and resources - and you almost never see industrial designers involved in the engineering design cycle during the initial prototype phase of a new product.

Like I said before, FIRST robots are protoypes, one of a kind.

When I got my BSEE degree there were no courses that had anything to do with product appearance, polishing metal, applying paint, hooking up wires so they look nice. Im not aware of any of the other engineering disciplines offering any appearence-related courses. There are human interface courses, how to design a system so it is easy, safe and simple to use - but they are dealing with form, fit and function, not appearance.

I admit I am being a little snobby with my 'real engineers' comment. Engineers solve problems. We make systems that fullfill a need. When we get done making it functional we hand the system off to someone else to make it look pretty - but that someone else is not an electrical, mechanical, SW, chemical, industrial, or nuclear engineer.

The other thing you need to grasp is that for EVERY engineering project you always have limited funds, people, time and resources. No company is ever going to ask you to design a system, and tell you "go ahead and take as long as you need, spend as much as you want, hire as many engineers as you like, build new facilities, buy whatever equipment you like...."

FIRST does an excellent job of reflecting this: limited time, money, resources, materials that can be used... Teams are forced to make tradeoff decisions: what gives us the most return for the investment? Adding new features or functions to the robot, or taking the frame apart to polish it?

Engineering project management is one of the most important aspects of engineering. You have to know what resources you have at your disposal, and how to make the most of what you have.

Personally when I see a FIRST team that has gone way over the top, that has spent a fortune on their robot, and has 30 engineers at their disposal, and tons of money, my first thought is "Gee, couldnt you guys split up and start six more teams, with the same resources you are spending on one?" (but thats just me).

Last edited by KenWittlief : 20-10-2005 at 13:02.
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