YMTC - Manufacturing

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Ok, now its this year - I dont see anyway I can honestly say "design a battery holder" means "get the drawings from two years ago and hand them to the machinist on the shop floor".

If they dont go through the same design cycle / exercise, then they have no idea why the battery holder is the way it is.

and the rule that we have quoted a few times now says all "designing" for this years robot must be done after this years kickoff meeting.

This has already been refuted a few posts ago. You seem to be the only person only looking at R16 and not R15, so where is the "we"?. Teams can prototype and design in the fall, according to R15.

If you wish to run your team this way, then that is your choice. However, please don't tell teams that using prior designs is illegal. Teams do not have to re-invent the battery holder each year.

The GDC gives us a new game each January, with new challenges. If the game is so easy that all a veteran team has to do is pull the prints from the previous year, then the GDC didn't make a good game. On the other hand, if we all had to re-format our brains, start from scratch with un-used designs we would see many non-movable boat anchors on the FIRST playing field.

It is simply ridiculous to say that FIRST does not want us to re-use proven (or even foolish) designs, or share designs between teams. Teams and individuals have been highly recognized and awarded for doing such things. Teams have won Chairman's Awards and individuals have won Woodie Flowers Awards for doing exactly these gracious acts.

Students on teams without engineering mentors learn from other teams this way. Making teams re-design from scratch is not only stupid, but against the ideals of the engineering iterative process.

Andy B.