Database Index
The following four steps are the parts of the Engineering Cycle which can be as short in life as a single tournament or an entire season.
Strategy"The thinking behind what you are doing and the goal in which you are trying to achieve - AKA the plan."
The first and most important step every year is to decide what your goals are and how you are going to go about completing that in regards to team organization and the focus of your robot - such as skills, defensive - competitive, or efficiency competitive. |
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Design"The specific type of robot you want to use, and the systems you want to use on it."
The second step in the cycle is to brainstorm ideas for a robot design and the systems on it. Ex. If you want to be a scoring robot, do you want to be fast or slow? If fast then are you sacrificing your speed for capacity? If slow then are you going to focus on being able to hold a lot and have more system? This is where you decide if you want to use lever lifts versus linear lifts, and on deciding your motor distribution (six motors on drive, two on lift, two on intake for example) and where you are going to use pneumatics if at all. |
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Build"The construction of the decided-upon design with keeping the strategy in mind, with keeping attention to small details to avoid issues."
The third step is where the ideas of the first two take physical form in the build. As the design can be questionable with a defined strategy or goal in mind, thoughtless building is also dangerous. If a team wanted to be a defensive robot, but built their robot with little to no support, it could fall apart. Build also includes rebuilds, which while good for reorganizing and fixing certain issues, you chance losing the 'tweaks' used to fix minor issues. Minor issues tend to be one the greatest threats to teams, and can easily cost matches in mirror match-ups. |
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Execution"The usage of the build, combined with strategy to achieve one's set goals along with maintenance to keep the output consistent."
The final step, as important as the rest when it comes to performing with what the other steps produced. This includes driving, programming, maintenance, scouting, coaching, and picking - all of which should be dependent on the previous steps. For example, if a scoring efficiency team wants to perform well, they need to focus on scoring in matches with the coach guiding the driver to objects and goals to score in. This, along with scouting good defensive teams to pair with so that in alliance selection the team can smartly choose who they want to be with. |
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