Mars Rovers Update

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

I beg to differ. That's the basic essence of consumerism. The basic essence of engineering is add more features and who cares about cost.

The project manager (not the engineers) keep it in check as to how much it will cost in the long run, and if you have to sacrifice features, then marketing plays up the ones you have.

Ummmm... nope!
Engineers often have set budgets to work within. These budgets are a major factor which can drive design-tradeoffs.

I'm hoping from your "" that you were just joking, but I'd also like to make it clear to all the budding-young-enginerds out there that the methods outlined in your post isn't the way things work. I make decisions everyday which are driven by cost-considerations.

Striking the balance between function and cost is the challenge we all face.
We deal with these decisions each season on our robots -- weight-constraints, and size-constraints often keep me up at night during the 6-weeks. This can be just like real-life.

JV