Gems of Wisdom

Don't wait until the last second to think about mechanical components! Room 36 laser cutter slots fill up FAST, especially after thanksgiving break.

Prototyping early can also help you find (and fix) any initial design flaws before it's too late!

Keep your circuit tidy and clean! Being able to easily see all connections saves time and makes troubleshooting much easier. 

In addition, a tidy circuit reduces the chance of short circuit, bad connections, and other unexpected circuit behaviors.

Be thorough with your state machine design and don't be afraid to revise them often! Having up-to-date diagrams is very useful during software implementation and debugging.

Revising the state diagrams can also lead to possible optimization: look for events that are posted to the same destination from different modules at the same time!