we created a lego model, agreed it was a good design, and built… built= measure…cut…fit…(if it doesnt fit, cut again or file)…get next piece…repeat…overweight? …drill…drill…drill…drill… 
a good amount goes into the planning of our bots-- we just sit for about the first few days and decided what we want to our bot to do-- we take in the consideration of what he have available-- i believe that’s a key thing-- then students come up ideas along w/ our mentors-- from there we just vote on designs and concepts–and eventually the engineers draw out the simple designs the students have come up with on the blackboard or the overhead sheets
plannning is somethign that all teams should do-- good luck with all the planning next season
as much time as in takes. most a week.
We spent the first week and a half building the playing field and coming up with different designs for the robot. Then we came up with a final idea and drew it out and wrote in the different measurements we would need to make everything work their best. We then dry-fitted peices and measured and cut. I put medium for drafting, but minimal for the calculations.
We make solid models and detailed drawings of every part on the robot, including kit parts. This makes our assembly actually assemble without having to widen holes, remake parts when interferences are discovered.
In 2003, the came in very useful when the drive key ways in our primary drive shaft started to fail. We got some material, printed out the drawings and submitted them to the shop. We had replacement parts ready before the key ways actually failed.
This past year, one of our high school students learned enough to be able to make our engineering drawings based on the models which we uploaded on our message board. He prepared a design notebook with every part on the robot, material, how much it cost, etc. It was an impressive piece of work, and he really knew how to make engineering drawings by the end.
Since we have something like 400 different parts on our robots, that’s a lot of drawings.
Hey, I feel slighted. There’s nothing in the thread so far about software. 
This year was different for the TechnoKats in a couple of ways. First, the programming language changed, so none of the previous code was usable. Second, the usual programming mentor was called away on business just when things needed to get started, and I got asked to try to take charge.
With no prior experience with FIRST robotics, and no idea how programming the InnovationFirst system worked, I said yes anyway. I started by planning what I thought was a reasonable software architecture, with the control algorithms decoupled from the actual I/O, having separate bits of code dedicated to mediating between internal program states and the sensors and actuators. It turned out to match what was possible with the system very well. A couple of weeks later, everything was mapped out and most of it looked like it was going to be easy to make work. By the time the robot’s motors were wired up, the software was ready to run.
The advance planning paid off again when it came time to implement the autonomous code. The architecture had been designed to make it easy to deal with both manual control and programmed sequences, and it turned out to work that way in practice.
Now that I know my way around the IDE and this year’s default code better, I intend to make use of separate source code files better next year. I’ve already begun sketching out a more easily configurable PID control routine, and I’ll probably be working with a couple of students this fall to prototype a motor/feedback package so we can experiment with it.
I tried doing the same thing, but didn’t start early enough and didn’t get it tweaked enough.
Here at the Sparky 384 HQ, we have learned one thing well: planning helps prevent frustration, prevents relationships from breaking up, and also prevents those late night runs to Walgreen’s for PeptoBismo.
At Sparky, we use a highly evolved form of decision making that not only makes the leaders lives easier, but also prevents one person from being targeted for an idea that didn’t pan out at the competition. It’s called a “survey”. This “survey” helps us discover what our team wants in a robot.
After the patent pending “survey”, we then go to the drawing boards (aka Clark’s Office) to draw up plans. We are never done. As long as the robot isn’t in the crate and off to FedEx, there is still time for changes. While this is a blessing, we have limited it’s curse part by freezing certain parts of the design, such as the drive system and others.
Is there a book/web site/white paper that you know of that discusses in more detail on how “eventually you’ll end up with a differential equation”, something that I can use to explain these complex calculations in lame terms for my team?
Thanks
Adrian
we normally draw up the essentials of the drive train and just go hacking away at the end effect. setup an end effect test it out, works - keep it, doesn’t work - throw it out…start again…make for a very proficient end effect, but gives little time for the drive train to be developed so we need to have the final drive train on the floor in very little time…
We normally know where we want to end up with our machine right after the kickoff weekend, but getting there is a little more tricky…
I would say we’ve done a great deal of drawings for arm design concepts. Some have tentative measurements some have none and some are competely to scale.
As for calculations they exist to make us change our arm design.
Our design process has gone something like this:
Draw a concept design of the arm
Redraw it with angle and length measurements
calculate torque etc.
redesign arm
repeat
A lot of our planning includes breaking into smaller teams and each creating a different prototype, then all getting together and putting all our ideas together to make one great robot. But we really try hard to do lots of calculations to get it all as accurate as possible.
a lot
We were supposed to plan a robot!!! aw man, we were building a time machne!!! 
We work with NASA programmers, engineers, and machinists out at the KSC Prototype Lab, so even though our students do a lot of the calculations and drafting, i’d consider them both to be at the Extreme level.
Roccobot is completely designed from top to bottom and everything inbetween in a program called Pro-Engineering, or Pro-E for short. (its kind of like CADD for those of you who know what that is… essentially, we build a complete three-dimensional model to an extremely accurate scale on this program before we even think of going to the machine shop) We know exactly how the robot looks and pretty much how it will work before we even think of taking a sheet of aluminum to the watercutter.
Just because we arent allowed to use the machinery out at NASA (due to liability issues) does not mean that our mentors build our robots for us. Although techinically they machine each unique part for us, we students are the ones who work on Pro-E and actually design the robot first. Then a mentor will look over what we’ve done, and together both the students and mentors will work to achieve perfection. If we machine something and it doesnt work, we go back to the drawing board and try again, but our goal is to never have to do something all over again. [Six weeks is not long enough, and we do not want to waste time by having to rework calculations just because something was off by five millimeters. We want to ensure that we conserve as much time as possible, so that our drivers can at least get a little practice time in before we ship the robot.] After each part is made, the members of our pit crew actually assemble to robot themselves, with very little if any aid from mentors, only using the Pro-E blueprints that we’ve printed out. This way, everyone on the pit crew knows exactly what goes where and how it all works, just in case something stops functioning after a match.
It’s a lot of work, but its worth it. :yikes:
We’re hoping to get electricity run to our build shop before next season starts…
Going into the 4th week we are still planning things and trying to cooperate with our one sponsoir that dropped us and wont make parts, and one company that said they could make our parts is not going to be able to. So I think we are about at the standar time we are usually at. Not being able to start working on the robot till the staart of the fourth week.
not enough
We’re 3 weeks in… and still designing! They say we’ll finish CADing tonight…
probibly…
hopefully…
maybe?..
Ah screw it, it ain’t happening!
oh, we’ve drawn up several designs of different parts, debated pros and cons of everything. We have a couple of really good drawings that sprang from thin air at 2:00AM. But so far, all we’ve done is planning. :ahh: :ahh: :ahh: