End of Week 2: Comparison Update

So far the time restraint has had almost no effect on the project as a whole, and everything flowing well this year.  As of end of Week 2 this year, we have a robot that can drive, somewhat pick up balls, and at least shoot them into the low goal.  By the end of Week 2 in 2012, we were still finishing learning how to use tools, and how things are built as a whole, and just started making drawings using CAD programs to understand and create the concepts of how the robot can work.  By the end of Week 2 in 2013, we were doing something similar in terms of making sure people know how to use the different tools, but we were at least beginning to build the first prototype shooter out of 2"x4", as we had a general concept down for a linear shooter, a style of Frisbee shooter where the Frisbee travels along a straight track rather than around a circular path, after observing other teams having linear shooters.
As seen, we are far ahead of where we were in past years, when we were crunched for time, and we have still run relatively on the schedule created in the syllabus, although it was created before the game was announced.  If the team/project continues to run on that schedule, or even if it lags behind by a couple days, the product will definitely be in good shape and be more likely to produce higher quality results, at least as it appears now.
In terms of the effects each of the phases experienced thus far have had on each other, the conceptual design process was definitely worth every hour spent on it, because now every single one of us knows exactly how everything is supposed to work conceptually, and everyone is driven and determined to follow the design concepts, rather than internally still wanting to build something else.  Before, when we did not use the engineering design process, most of the members were a little unsure how things were supposed to work while building the mechanisms, and only understood after everything was built.  With the talking through things happening during the conceptual design process, we made sure everyone was on board, and almost all potential flaws of each possible mechanism was discussed during these conceptual design phase meetings/decisions.
This has had a big impact on the preliminary design phase as a whole, with the speed of building the prototypes and communication between each of the subteams, making sure each mechanism is compatible with the others.
So far, not much has been changed from the conceptual design process in terms of types of mechanisms as a whole, but there has been a continual change in the catapult so far, as we are finishing prototyping our third concept, and will find out tomorrow which to go with.  Other than that, the coarse plastic idea may slowly change, and the catcher concept hasn't been finalized in terms of the folding from the sides or the edges of the robot.