End Of Week 1: Comparison Update

While the bulk of my posts are mostly about the what, and what happened so far, the blog and general project goal is not only how to build a robot, but rather the process being used for building a robot.  The goal of this project is to see and understand how the engineering design process functions and how the time factor makes an impact, and comparing the final product and process to past years, when we didn't use the engineering design process.  Because we currently have some time, but not lots of time, a lot of ideas, and solid machining ability, as this year we prepared everyone to use the now available machinery, we have been going in and out of the conceptual design and preliminary design phases using cheap parts (PVC, wood, etc.) for the different mechanisms, creating many ideas, then building and testing them.
The extra prototyping gives us alternate options before it gets too late in the season to change, in the case of something we thought would work turns out to not meet expectations and requirements.  While it does add extra work, this method of having "competing ideas" allows us to choose the prototypes and concepts that best reach and exceed the requirements and standards we made for ourselves and move on from there.  This, of course, gives a better chance for a more improved final product.
In comparison to the past years, we are much more prepared, as we have now eliminated any financial restrictions through heavily fundraising throughout the offseason, created a partnership with a growing organization that gives us access to a full machine shop for our purposes (3D printers, laser cutters, lathes, drill presses, table saws, etcetera), trained every member how to use any machinery, and showed examples of different mechanisms and structurally sound parts.  This means, the only major factor is the clock, as the other factors that may effect the build season are mostly taken care of.
In the past years, we only made at most one prototype scorer.  While we were somewhat lucky both worked, part of the luck was due to other teams posting their mechanisms, all giving us the concepts well into Week 2 and early Week 3, and spent most of Weeks 1 and 2 discussing strategy and learning how to use power tools.  With the ability now to quickly machine basic and cheap parts, we can be one of the teams that releases successful prototypes within the first couple weeks, as we have so far done.
As a summary of the conclusion to Week 1, the engineering design process has been much better than past years, and time has not been much of a factor.