Rookie team in need of a lot of help

[Molten]

Originally Posted by OregonRoboHawks

Our team is made up of sophmores, freshman, and a few junior high school students. Of this group, only four or five are actually committed to this project. Still, even they do not always show up for our meetings.

Design team
The design team is made up of three sophmores. I am the only one who can attend every night. None of us know how to use CAD at this point. All three of us are going to be working on programming as well. Right now, all three of us are on at least 2 other teams and are a little swamped. At this point we have only completed a rough draft of our final design that is not drawn to scale or dimensioned.

Mechanical team
This team is slightly better off because we have shop and welding classes in our school. Still, many of the members making up this team are alittle....immature. Maybe more than alittle.

Programming team
The programming team is made up of myself and another member from the design team as well as a few more members. He at least has some experience in programming. Unfortunately, he is the only one who has an idea of what hes doing. One more problem with this is that we cannot access the EasyC Pro software included in the KOP because our license is missing or expired.

At this point we are trying to assemble our chassis. It is not going well. We do not have a way to make the axles fit into the wheels. As we have no electrical experience we do not know how to assemble all the components on the chassis.

We are being mentored by the Winnovation team (1625) in Winnabago IL. So far they have done a great job but we do not want to burden them with our problems. It is our short comings that are making this difficult. We are very frustrated by our lack of progress. We would love to have some advice on anything you can think of.

Thanks
Oregon RoboHawks
Team 2364

Who cares about progress? What matters is that it is done by the time you send the robot off. A lot of teams don't get much done right away. In fact, you remind me of my team when we started. We had 15 people. 3 who could make every meeting. As far as CAD goes, don't worry. I am well-experienced with the software and will be checking the delphi forum twice a day until you are through that part. I will talk you through anything you need. Just tell me what you need and I will help. As far as the mechanical team goes, ignore maturity. My experience is that if they can weld and machine, I don't care how they act. I will let them act however they please, as long as the work gets done. Now, the programming team. Dedicate the 1 person who knows something about it to that. Have them talk to people on here and they should be able to get a workable code for the whole drive straight and turn control. Other then that, just have fun. 1766 is always way undermanned and yet they always seem to do well.

Just a note, I will be on here most of the day Friday until 4. Just PM me anytime that day and I should have an answer back within the hour. I mostly just know CAD, but I know it well. Also, even if it is not CAD related, still PM. I will help as much as I can.

[OregonRoboHawks]

Ok thanks for the replies and the offers to help. We actually got a few engineers to show up tonight. Hopefully things will start to turn out now. If we need anything else I'll do another post.

Oregon Robohawks
Team 2364

[Sunshine]

Don't be afraid to email me at dskuruls@waukesha.k12.wi.us

Check back and look for this thread. I bet you get a lot of responses.