Programmers: I Have A Challenge For You

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

You know what, I will just be the team leader and have a "software first" mentality. Just recruit more programmers.

The typical problem is not a lack of programming resources. It's a lack of robot.

There are two ways the TechnoKats have successfully dealt with this problem. One is to build into the schedule a set of "programming only" sessions. We did this a couple of years ago, with the programming group having absolute priority on the robot a couple of evenings a week starting in Week 3 of the build. The mechanical and electrical groups were denied permission to work on the robot during those times (though they were encouraged to be present in case something broke). This worked out great because we built a practice 'bot at the same time, so "the robot" was actually able to be used by two groups simultaneously.

The other way is to finish the robot well in advance of ship date so that the programmers have plenty of time with it. This also has benefits for the drivers, giving them plenty of practice time. And probably the best thing about being done early is that there's plenty of time to break the robot.