Team 103 Robot

[Michael Leicht]

congrats on the win for inventor this year you guys did one amazing job. can't wait to see what comes out next year from team 103.

[Lea103]

Go T-dey!!! Great job guys i know a lot of 'hard' work went into this mike and didzis... who knows what will happen next year... better start training those freshmen

[JasJ002]

Congrats T-Dey on the award, looks like somebody can win inventor 2 years in a row. I geuss if anybody can do it it's gotta be 103. I'll see you guys in 2 weeks when I get to come home. Beleive me it's a pain trying to watch you guys from thousands of miles away on a really bad live feed (not that NASA's was bad I mean my internet connection is horrible).

[Rich Kressly]

Congrats on another amazing job. Now Robert, leave the workstation before that CPU sucks in the rest of your soul

[vadyr]

i think our whole team told the inventor crew that there was no way they would ever win again...and i guess we were proved wrong! congrats thacker-dey, mike, and didzes!

[wilshire]

amazing work cybersonics

[Robert Thacker-]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

Congrats on another amazing job. Now Robert, leave the workstation before that CPU sucks in the rest of your soul

LOL The rest of my soul belongs to the team anyway, so I guess loosing the rest of it is really no big loss on my part.

[FourPenguins]

Originally Posted by vadyr

i think our whole team told the inventor crew that there was no way they would ever win again...and i guess we were proved wrong! congrats thacker-dey, mike, and didzes!

I guess "we won it last year" will never again be a valid excuse! (Trust me, we've hidden behind that one in other awards)

[FourPenguins]

Originally Posted by Eric Scheuing

Three people!?! We had about 6 on average working, and around 10 total who were "part of the CAD team." You guys hav amazing inventor skills.

I know this post's been around a bit, but I just thought about it a little, so here goes:
For many situations, three is the perfect number for a team. Three is a low enough number that everyone can operate on an equal level, without the need for a "captain" to oversee them. This also eliminates the need for someone to find work for the underlings, which was a huge problem on our CAD team (3 Seniors, 1 Jr. in his 2nd year on CAD, and three utter n00bs (myself included) with mechanical (me), architectural CAD, or no experience). The new kids were often forced to sit on their hands because the leadership couldn't spend all of their time giving us work to do. If they had, they couldn't have accomplished anything themselves.
On the other hand, three people eliminate the power struggles that are inevitable in a two-man/woman team. The third person acts as the check and balance in a disagreement, weighing in to support the sensible side.
The result of all of this is that a three person team seems just about right for a task of this size. I'm sure that many teams have had ample success with larger teams and better organization, but my point is not to count out the smaller teams.

[petek]

Originally Posted by 11Ed71

For many situations, three is the perfect number for a team.

Especially when they're Rob, Mike and Didzis! Seriously, I agree with you - as long as the people are really into what they're doing. Too many cooks spoil the soup sort of thing. Didn't hurt a bit that they learned their trade last year with Jason! This year Rob and Mike did about 90% of the work, because Didzis was more involved in manufacturing than last year (he did a lot of the CNC router table work).

Now that we know the AIA can be won more than once, I've challenged the team to see if they can make it a threepeat! Watch out world: I bet Rob will be in a tightly-coupled symbiotic relationship with his laptop and Inventor 11 for the summer...

[JasJ002]

Originally Posted by petek

I bet Rob will be in a tightly-coupled symbiotic relationship with his laptop and Inventor 11 for the summer...

I think we've experienced this already Pete. And yeah I think with Inventor a 2-4 guy team is perfect. Hopefully I'll be able to come to kickoff again before I'm shipped out once again. I plan on comming to visit you guys in a week to give you your congrats in person.

[negfrequency]

o god. I've got a 1-person XCORE team. Ok so its not that many people, but i think im getting the hang of everything in inventor all the way down to the wiring and welding.

I have decided i want to go for the inventor award next year. We have never even submitted before, but ive already started working on models more improved than the ones on the CAD library in hopes to take it, as i've been told detail makes the difference. I plan on working over the summer, and i have no idea whether i will stand a chance or not, but its worth a shot. Think i stand a chance?

[petek]

Originally Posted by negfrequency

o god. I've got a 1-person XCORE team. Ok so its not that many people, but i think im getting the hang of everything in inventor all the way down to the wiring and welding.

I have decided i want to go for the inventor award next year. We have never even submitted before, but ive already started working on models more improved than the ones on the CAD library in hopes to take it, as i've been told detail makes the difference. I plan on working over the summer, and i have no idea whether i will stand a chance or not, but its worth a shot. Think i stand a chance?

Absolutely. My two cents:

Practice does make perfect. Once build season starts you won't have much time for learning - you need to be able to create accurate part models quickly.

Explore a lot. Inventor has tons of features which have gone largely unexplored in the submissions I've seen. Go through the "what's new in Inventor" stuff and check out the online info, too.

Delegate. If you can, get somebody to set up the web pages and shoot the pictures - these are things which should be done in parallel with the Inventor content. The web page layouts should be done before the designs are finished, and you can start populating pages with screenshots way early in the process.

Remember your history. Keep notes and abandoned design elements - they tell a lot about how your robot developed. This year team 342 has a really nice week-by-week diary which tells the story of their designs evolution very well using prototype models and photos from along the way. Very nice.

Practice some more.

Okay, that was probably more like three cents, so good luck and feel free to ask questions - PMs are free.

[spears312]

Thats really a amazingly detailed model. I did some of the Inventor work for my team this year, and I'm still amazed by the power of programs like this. I never quite completed the robot, but after seeing that, I feel like taking the time this summer to go back and reverse engineer the whole thing in CAD to learn more about the program.

[Robert Thacker-]

Originally Posted by petek

Now that we know the AIA can be won more than once, I've challenged the team to see if they can make it a threepeat! Watch out world: I bet Rob will be in a tightly-coupled symbiotic relationship with his laptop and Inventor 11 for the summer...

You're right. I honestly never thought we would win it this year. But nevertheless, I got to warn teams that I'm bringing Inventor to a whole new level next year. You'll have to see what we put out!