This season, Teams 48 and 3193 participated in a robot design and fabrication collaboration. Both teams contributed to the design and split the fabrication of parts for 3 robots, including the shared practice robot. Each team was responsible for building their robots separately, using Skype to stay in touch during the assembly phase, sharing build tips and lessons learned along the way.
The teams used their individual strengths to help each other out. An example - because 48 has more liquid spending power, we helped 3193 obtain parts sooner earlier in the build, and they have been acquiring parts for us of late to “pay us back”. No “robot welfare” in this collaboration - team leaders have all been very persistent in requiring each team to stand up and contribute their fair share to the build effort. That is how a true collaboration should function.
I liked the way this partnership turned out, because both teams benefited from the strengths of the other; we produced and learned more together than we could have separately, and each team was still responsible for its own robot assembly.
I think the effort paid dividends in Pittsburgh, as 48 was a finalist, and 3193 made it to the semifinals. I am very proud of what we accomplished so far together. Now it is time to get better.
Now that the bulk of the building and programming is complete (save for autonomous - annoying electrical glitch on practice bot, since quashed, killed a day an a half of auton testing prior to Pittsburgh), we will now use the next 3-4 weeks to further transition the teams to two fully independent crews. This will be kinda sorta necessary since 3193 will be at Buckeye in Week 6, and 48 will be at North Carolina that same week. Hurray for practice robots. 