QUESTION 11/25/01: How will your team design the robot during 6 short weeks?
I’ve been through some process where half the team weren’t happy with the design, and the robot came out great afterward… So, I am just curious about this because veteran teams might’ve developed something special after seeing what worked and what didn’t… Then again, people new to this competition could be bringing some fresh new ideas about this…
Have fun,
-Ken Leung
P.S. I am open to suggestions of any questions you want as the “QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!!”… So e-mail me at [email protected] and show me what you got…
The first thing our team does is the infamous QFD (Quality Function Design) Chart, which is a way of brainstorming and qualifying what we all think will be important on the robot. This is a long and drawn out process, but returning team members recognize it as something you just have to do. Later, we create subteams who are charged with completing a specific task. Last year examples include balancing, chassis, programming, drive, etc. Then theres a team that makes sure that nothing will conflict (placement in the robot). Every week, each subteam presents to the whole team their progress and future plans. A few people are on more than one team, most of these are involved in an engineering type group and a PR, fundraising type group. In the end, it works out pretty well. A representative from most of the subteams is on the ‘pit crew’ so usually repairs go smoothly. But, without a doubt, whenever something malfunctions…its gotta be an electrical problem.
We’re working with a rookie team this year, and we’re really not sure what to expect. This past few weeks, we’ve been running them ragged through a practice ‘6 weeks’ using last year’s rules.
It’s helped us a lot because Christina and I have been able to get a good idea of what the sponsors, teachers, and students don’t really understand about the competition (like, we need to use the Bosch drill motor, not a Bosch drill motor!)
Overall, I’ve been quite surprised with the knowledge of the students, and I don’t think we’ll be lacking in any ideas. Our biggest problem, as far as I can see, will be actually getting any construction done at all. Our sponsored school doesn’t have a screwdriver, let alone a machine shop. So, that means we’re currently doing all of our work way offsite, and the commute times and having to work around shopkeeper’s schedules really makes getting a lot of work done difficult. We should have complete access to our University’s machine shop by January, though, so hopefully things will go a bit smoother. (P.S. - Christina, if you read this, e-mail me a copy of Patrick’s constitution! I forgot to do it myself)
With all of that said, we’ve taken a huge leap of faith, and we’ve put a lot of time and effort into designing and building a drive system. It’s really, really ambitious for a rookie team, I think, and we’ve got our fingers crossed that we won’t have to do any major revisions to it. We’re already beginning to manufacture a prototype version of that, and we hope to have a working drive system by very early in the first week.
From there, we can focus on putting all of effort and resources toward the other bits and pieces, and I’m hoping that’ll help to alleviate some of our production hiccups.
Well, here at Rice High School we have to get used to a new group of engineers:( . After what happened in September our old engineers have to work downtown . We will stick to the system of letting our drivers rest for most of the time so that they aren’t too tired when the regional comes around
However, we already have our drive system done and if we have to change the motor dues to changes in the rules we can.
we’ll end up spending our 1st week getting the game down and brainstorming
our second week we’ll design our robot, build the frame, give our drivers practice on the prototyped drive system, and build the feild
3rd week we’ll prototype our robot with everything in place
4th week we’ll test the whole thing at once
if it works we construct a second model for the competition and turn the prototype over to our drivers
5th week paint and pack up the competition model to keep it out of our way !!!keep the driver practice coming!!!
6th week let the team cool down except for the drivers they’ll have daily practice till its time to go to the regional
last year our drivers extended their daily practice to 8pm the night before our regional
Remember your drivers put your hard work into action
*Originally posted by team 713 *
**However, we already have our drive system done and if we have to change the motor dues to changes in the rules we can.
**
Just remember that you will likely have to build everything from scratch after kickoff. In the three years I have been involved, teams have not been allowed to use anything fabricated prior to the kickoff.
I assume you know this, but figured I’d point it out just in case.
Well, this year we’re attempting to step off in the right direction by watching the kickoff (somewhere), and making a tape of it for review. Around that time, we’ll map Inventor, pBasic writer, and our new simulator (if done) to a network drive. If we manage to finish the simulator, which is basically a funky Inventor manipulator mixed with a Robot Interface emulator, we’ll try to send every team a copy. How nice of us.
Week 1 will consist of mainly brainstorming and basic systems design interpretation.
Week 2 will be basic systems building and complex systems design.
Week 3 will be complex systems design finalization time and Inventor model drawing time.
Week 4 will be design completion and the begining of building more complex systems. By this time we hope to have a running testbed. We’ll also be writing our pBasic code that week.
Week 5 will be full robot completion time. We’ll paint it, affix logos, and test it to get all the gremlins out.
Week 6 is packing time! We’ll build spare assemblies and pack up the bot.
After week 6, we’ll be attempting to do whatever we still need to do: making uniforms, recruiting cheerleaders, and that other all important thing, rallying.
After week 6, we’ll be attempting to do whatever we still need to do: making uniforms, recruiting cheerleaders, and that other all important thing, rallying.
wow the advantages of a big coed school
after reading some of the posts of how to do the 6 week process i think my team my get a lil jealous
Well, let’s see. On our team, it will probably go as follows:
Design. Come up with a really simple but good idea, and file it away, then, design a whole bunch of really complex ideas that will never work.
Try to build a new design, and return to the original idea. Decide we still have 5 weeks left, and take it easy.
Realize we now have only 4 weeks left, and hurry up and build the basic systems.
4-5. Finish basic systems, and start complex systems. Conduct three pop-can drives in two weeks.
Weigh our robot, find out it is too heavy even without two subsystems, and drill holes in everything.
Shipping Day: Wait for the arms to to get back from the welder, so we can attach them to the bot and throw them in the crate 5 minutes before the deadline.
As you can see, my team is extremely well-organized. Surprisingly, it all works, and we have a lot of fun along the way. It’s not really this bad, but it sure seems like it at times.
What if you did the pop-can drive now, like we did. We did it for 4 weeks and got almost $1000. (that is a lot of cans!!) That would create less worry now so you can have more time to devote to the robot…
But it’s so much more fun to be running around frantically trying to get cans while a few teammembers finish the robot. Besides, isn’t Michigan weather in February so nice?
. We will stick to the system of letting our drivers rest for most of the time so that they aren’t too tired when the regional comes around
