How long does your team plan?

[RTTComanche17]

For the chassis, we plan for most of the off season. We design the chassis and trannys with autodesk a couple different ways and when the kickoff comes, we quickly pick the best one and start building within the first few days. For the appendage, we normally plan for a week or two after the kickoff and then start to build.

[Cory]

In theory, one to one and a half weeks would go into design of our robot.

Last year it ended up that it took until the end of week 3, because we had no idea whether our ball pickup/conveyor to shooter would work.

The only way you can take that long to design is if you do everything in CAD though. Otherwise you're sunk when things don't go together like you thought they would.

[Donut]

We spend roughly the first week discussing game strategy and robot designs, then begin construction at some point on the Saturday at the end of the first week.

However, only various components are finished as we go along. Our design keeps changing as we go, and sometimes we're still designing things in week 5/6 because of test failures or rude awakenings (we came up with the mechanism for releasing balls Saturday before ship, and tested it President's day, which is our ship day).

I'd like to keep such events from happening this year. Hopefully we can figure everything out earlier.

[Royalpride1070]

i think the longer u spend planning.. the better your robot will be. For the FVC season.. our team planned for like.. a day.. w/o working out all the strategies and stuff.. so we turned out going through and building six designs.. so.. the more time spent planning.. the more you kno wat you're doing.. and wat u're actually aiming for in a robot.
NOT SAYING that teams who plan in a short amount of time aren't awesome.. of course they're awesome.. mayb it's just our team... we need time to process. lol

[Gdeaver]

So far all the posts have been about the robot. What about field elements. Our team makes a push after the first week to Build the key field elements. You can look at the pictures and description of the field and field elements but nothing compares to actually having them put together and setup. This allows a team to test prototypes and many times you can see strategies and methods more clearly.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

Well, we take the design process very seriously, this is our biggest step of the season. Our whole team is involved in this because after this we split up into our seperate groups to get the team ready for ship.

We spend the whole first week after kickoff planning for the season

After Kickoff we spend a few hours discussing the game.
The first monday after kickoff we go to GM and we discuss the game and get everyone on the team familiar with the game so there is no confusion about it.
The Next day we get together and take about the game elements and strategies that we can come up with that will excel in the game. We make it a fact that we do not design anything this day.
On Wednesday we finish talking about the strategies and start coming up with a drivetrain idea.
Thursday we start designing the rest of the robot with our strategies.
Friday we rethink everything and check to see if we made a jack of all trades. We make sure everyones designs and concepts are heard and we make the simplist design we can.

[Elgin Clock]

It shocks me to see teams with numbers lower than ours waiting till week 3 or 4 to start building parts.

That's unheard of on Team 237.
Week 1:
Saturday: Kickoff - Members watch NASA TV or webcast.
Sunday: Team kickoff brunch/luncheon where everyone on the team who didn't watch kickoff live gets the game basics and learns what is in the kit.
Monday: Kids are expected to have read the manual and be ready to discuss game play and strategy - Go over kit parts again to learn what we can use.
Tuesday: Come up with ways to win and get the most points.
Weds: Accomplish ideas for how to "do" the "what" discussed on Tuesday.
Thursday: Mechanical & Electrical split off from rest of team and tweak details of design.
Friday: Finish overall system design, start subsystems.
If the metal chips in the metal shop start flying on Friday we are very happy with ourselves.
If they start flying Monday, we are still happy.. but that just means something requires a little more attention than normal.

Weeks 2-5:
Build, Test, Rebuild, Assemble, Build, Test, Rebuild, Assemble.
Week 5.75-6: Give to electrical team to wire as we are packing it in the crate.

You don't know what 6 weeks worth of stress is unless you are on the Electrical team within 237, but then you have had 5.5 weeks of relaxing and .5 weeks of hardcore work so you better be up to it!

Originally Posted by Royalpride1070

i think the longer u spend planning.. the better your robot will be.

Flipside point of view: Plan for too long, and don't have enough time to "do".

Those 42ish days fly by faster than you realize.

[Ian Curtis]

2006
Sunday Immediately following Kickoff 8-11: Marathon Brainstorm
Week 1: Prototype
Week 2: Prototype
Week 3: Build Frame/Continue Prototyping other systems
Week 4: Decide on shooter
Week 5: Begin Assembly/Continue prototyping
Days 1,2,3,4 of Week 6: Continue Assembly, desperately attempt to figure out storage tank for balls
Days 5,6: Build storage tank for balls, assemble robot at breakneck speed
7: Test autonomous, Driver practice.

Yep, the whole finish designing by week 3, we kinda missed.

Word to the Wise: This is not a good idea. While during years 1 and 2 the administration and janitor expected we were crazy, they were throroughly convinced after this ordeal. Stress runs very high during those last few days.

[Jaime65]

well on our team everyone doesn't go to kick off maybe about 10-15 students after kick off the following Monday everyone meets over at GM we discuss the game inside and out making sure everyone knows whats going on then we spend the next 3 days brainstorming ideas on the 4th day we pick an idea and a robot design the following week every Monday Wednesday Thursday and Saturday the engineering teem meets at GM and create our robot with 4 of the remaining weeks the 5th week is human player and driver try outs along with crate painting

[Cuog]

Wow everyone, Thanks for all the responces, I think that from what everyone has said, the 6 days we have planned will be plenty. Good Luck everyone, 22 days and counting

[Cory]

Im kind of surprised at how many people don't meet to brainstorm strategy/design after kickoff on sat and/or on sunday.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Cory

Im kind of surprised at how many people don't meet to brainstorm strategy/design after kickoff on sat and/or on sunday.

Me too.

Team 294 (and 2150 this year) meets at our Sponsor on kickoff day to watch the video and strategize all day. I assumed it was pretty much standard practice for teams to do something like that.

[Cuog]

422 stays at school Saturday and Sunday and we do a very large amount of our planning over those two days. Thats why I put up this survey, as I was originally thinking that those two days(totaling about 16 hours of meeting) would be close to enough planning time for the robot with one or two more meetings to work out the bugs in the designs.

[Madison]

I'm remarkably surprised by the number of folks who've written something akin to, "We design the robot on Tuesday."

I can't believe that any single team can appreciably design an entire robot over the course of a single day. I'm interpreting those statements to be something more like, "We draw boxes on a whiteboard," or "We make it up as we go along."

How long does it take for the folks who design everything in advance to work through the whole robot? If I work on nothing else, it takes me about four days to a design solidified enough to move onward to production.

Maybe I just don't have the nerve to fly by the seat of my pants and design things as we go along.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I'm remarkably surprised by the number of folks who've written something akin to, "We design the robot on Tuesday."

So am I. Guys, think first, then build. Strategy is everything. Spend a day or two (even a week) working out a strategy, then build to meet it. Watch your team score higher in the rankings (assuming decent partners).

Originally Posted by M. Krass

I can't believe that any single team can appreciably design an entire robot over the course of a single day. I'm interpreting those statements to be something more like, "We draw boxes on a whiteboard," or "We make it up as we go along."

Again, a bad thing to do. We take up to a week, first coming up with ideas, then evaluating them, then having small groups design a robot, then choosing one design for the robot.

Originally Posted by M. Krass

How long does it take for the folks who design everything in advance to work through the whole robot? If I work on nothing else, it takes me about four days to a design solidified enough to move onward to production.

Depends on the part. I'd guess about a week on average once the design is locked. However, when the part designs are locked depends on the part. The drive frame is the first thing to lock. (If you can't drive, you are pretty much useless on the field.) By then we have some idea about the rest of the robot, but then we have to design the other parts and lock those designs. In 2005, we didn't start until week 5, and we were complete other than some modifications to our arm's grabbing end and painting by ship date. 2006, we had a drivable frame before the shooter was locked down.