End of Week 5: Comparison Update and EDP Evaluation

As it is the end of Week 5 and everything is wrapping up, I should be reaching my end of build season hypothesis for whether or not the engineering design process is worth it, and am.  Since I haven't seen the results yet (haven't gone through competitions/regionals yet), I can not yet make it my conclusion, but can base the hypothesis just on the general feeling of everything compared to past years.  As figured from past posts, we are way ahead of where we were in past years, with just barely beginning to test the intake and finishing the CAD of the shooter for 2013, and just getting the sheet metal parts for 2012 (did only get parts 2/8/2012), so we are ahead as said before, having a robot that could be bagged and play the game just fine.

For now, the question is pretty much "why?", and the main two parts of the answer are: "It was the engineering design process" and "It was having funds and experience/knowledge", and it's just a matter of what is the mix for the answer.  Another big part of what needs to be answered is how time affected the process as a whole, which means the identification of the other factors would also be needed.

Up to this point, I have found that the factors that may change the engineering design process are time, money, (non-financial tangible) resources (how well can you machine things how quickly?), and knowledge/experience.  Overall, I do think it was primarily the engineering design process for each of the mechanisms that helped speed us along, and, so far, has been worth going through it.  Also, I feel that, as I already have stated, time is not the only factor, and not bigger than the others, but time's effect on the process depends on the levels of the other factors.  As of now, it seems as though if one has high amounts of two of the four things that act as factors, and mediocre amounts of one other will allow for the last factor to not matter (in this case, plenty of non-financial tangible resources and knowledge/experience, so so funding, and not much time).  In past years, we had decent experience, mediocre machining capabilities and funding, and not much time, so we weren't able to do much.

I have come to this conclusion mostly because time has not had that much of an affect on the process as a whole.