I had done robotics when I was in high school, so when I heard that this class was very similar to it I leapt at the chance to take it. I’m studying Computer Engineering here, so ME courses are not up my alley, but had room for a flexible technical elective and thought this one would fit the bill. On my team I did a bit of everything, so when it came to the whole process of concepting, designing, and fabricating a robot, I was very familiar with the process, but on a larger scale. I knew how to use all the machines in the shop, am good enough to at least get my associate certificate in SolidWorks, and have cranked out many parts in my time. This experience was a little different though.
As I mentioned, I’m in Computer Engineering, so all of the mechanics that were stressed in the beginning of the course up to the exam were not kind to me. I haven’t had to deal with torque since high school. What I learned as far as the “ME” side of building a robot is that MEs use an absurd number of terms for things that just seem like common sense. I can’t say I’ll remember any of the terms that were introduced to me in this course as they’ll simply remain intuitive.
In terms of actual design and manufacturing, I can’t say I learned much, but instead got to work with a group of ME students who knew (in theory) about building robots but had never done it themselves. Coming up with ideas was very simple for me as most of these problems I’d seen before so I knew a solution which would work for them. The others had not, so seeing them come to agree with my solution or come up with other ones which were either completely impractical or solid ideas which I had not thought of was an interesting experience, as always. Manufacturing was a similar story; I knew how to design parts which were easy to manufacture, while some of the parts I didn’t touch ended up being rather sketchy. While the robot did work out in the end, I would have done parts of it differently.
Teamwork and time management really proved to be the most difficult things that our group dealt with this semester. We’re all so busy that scheduling this class around our schedules and so that it coincided with appropriate due dates and machine shop hours proved to be a hassle. We were all taking very different schedules this semester with very varying workloads, so choosing a time to meet proved difficult. I’ve never been a fan of teamwork, but this time around it seemed to carry more positives than negatives and I walk away with this class knowing some people better.
What I really, really disliked about this class was the bureaucracy of it all. Everything had to be strictly controlled, and that’s part of working at an institution, but I did not appreciate it at all. The machine shop had narrow windows, signing up to use machines spread across hundreds of students was impractical at the end, I hated the tool-tag system, and there was the press of due dates scattered across the semester which never aligned with when I had time. We really needed far more time to build and test our robot, as well as to make modifications and fixes at the end. Students need to be building their robot far sooner, and start designing even earlier. I felt far too relaxed at the beginning of the semester and far too pressed at the end. It’s really not hard at all to come up with a strategy of how to play the game – that doesn’t take a week. In high school, we decided on a strategy day one after everyone had read the rules and thought of a couple to discuss.
Finally, I didn’t end up getting along with Bob at all. My feelings generally wouldn’t matter except when he chose to be unhelpful and even kick me out while making a part. For someone who is suppose to help us along and aid us in making our parts, he cannot be rude and abrasive. I liked Mark however, as he was always kind, helpful and would understand if we made a mistake.
I mostly enjoyed my time in this class and will recommend it to a couple of friends with a few warnings. I wish there wasn’t a grade associated with this class. In the end, I’m disappointed that we were knocked out due to a lock-tite’d wheel. There wasn't even a best 2/3 or a true seeding match. Nor were we able to really test our robot on the day of the competition. That is another thing to improve - more control systems. The starvation without those was terrible.
We could have won it all...
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