As the course comes to an exciting and somewhat
disappointing end (8th seed, losing in round 2) last Thursday, I
can’t help but to think that there were things that we could have done to
improve our performance.
Reflection on The
Robot
First of all, we underestimated how unpredictable the
electric motors and control boxes were. We had the motors set up and ready
early on in the semester, but we never thought to test their performance and
controllability. The control box turns out to be unpredictable sometimes, which
was one factor that lost us the game. It would have been nice to practice with
the motors early on to get a better idea of how it performs. If we knew the
fact that the control was not sensitive before hand, we may have chosen a
strategy that required less precise driving.
Secondly, we did not study the field as well as we should
have. We didn’t realize our robot was unable to go behind the tower. On the day
of the competition, we also realized that we had a harder time getting balls on
the left side of the field.
Lastly, I wish that we had more time to come up with a
strategy. I think our strategy was a great one and it make a lot of sense with
the way the competition is set up, but the fact that so many teams had the
similar idea was a disadvantage we underestimated.
Reflections on Design
and Manufacturing
Over the course of the semester, I learned a more formal
process of design, instead of trial-and-error like we did in high school
robotics. However, I feel that I learned much more about manufacturing. It was
great to have the hands on opportunity to make parts using the mill and the
lathe. This gave me a better idea of what is a realistic design, and what is a
design that’s easier to manufacture. This experience also gave me a good
foundation for working on engineering student project teams.
Reflections on
Teamwork and Time Management
Comparing to many teams I’ve talked to, I believe that my
team worked very well together. I was rarely stressed out or frustrated about
the team project. Our team leader Garrett did a great job taking care of many
little things that the team overlooked throughout the semester. The whole team
also communicated very well using texting and emails. I don’t think everyone
put in exactly the same amount of work and time on the project, but that is
always the case with teamwork, and nobody on our team put in a subpar effort. I
think this is also the reason that we have been ahead of almost every deadline.
MS6 was the only one we had to work past our scheduled meeting hours.
How The Course Can Be
Improved
I liked the course overall mainly because of the hands-on
part and the competition. But there are a few things that I think can improve.
For one, the lecture had seemed to be quite a burton. I was not motivated to absorb
the information. For one, it was nine in the morning; also, much of the
information wasn’t covered on the exam/homework or affects our grade directly.
To improve the performance our robots, it would be helpful to form groups on
the first or second week, so we have more time to work out a better strategy.
The game itself can use a major improvement. I did not like the fact that there
is only one way to score. This limited the creativity very much. There simply
should’ve be one strategy that ends the game (i.e. sitting on the opponent’s
goal). I also didn’t like the wave-field. It was way more difficult to get the
balls from than the tower, while the reward is almost the same. The difficulty
to reward ratio is not balanced in many parts of the game. I’m glad at least
the rubber balls are not sitting on the ground anymore (like last semester). I
think this lopsided difficulty to reward ratio is what undermined creativity
and made many robots look the same. Especially after every team did the
Pugh-chart, the tower was obviously the easy solution with lots of points.
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