Words of Wisdom

It is about the journey and the learning.

Have fun! Chat with other teams and peers :)

Develop the idea and be on the same page as a team before focusing on technical problems.

Brainstorm the full system before starting out on the details. Don't be afraid to revisit the full system after diving deeper into the details of subsystems and components.

Manage wires well and solder into permanence when possible. Removing the need to check whether wires are still connected reduces the time in debugging significantly, especially while integrating.

Leave room to prototype and iterate!

Prototype mechanical designs as early as possible.

Concurrently work through mechanical design and software development. Issues in software may lead to changes in mechanical design and vice versa!

Simple is better. Having fewer parts leads to simpler mechanisms and systems that are easier to design, build, and have fewer failure points.  Don't underestimate the need for reliability.

Test early, test often, and test extensively.

Test progressively. Going for too much at once will delay reaching milestones.

Build modularity and adjustability into the design. Full disassembly takes time, so design parts to be swappable with minimum interference from other parts.