Gems of Wisdom

Since the COMMS Committee needs a decent lead time to develop a viable protocol, write services for all your hardware first (take good guesses at what the COMMS committee will require).  Then once the protocol is out, design the FSM such that conversion between what the protocol requires and what your services require is seamless, requiring very little - if any - changes to your services.

Also during the COMMS Committee lead time, write code for two XBees to communicate with each other.  Write the code such that all possible scenarios are attainable (ex. TXs/RXs of varying length, ability to receive/read XBee ACK messages).  In other words, write this code such that it is more complicated than what you'd expect the COMMS Committee to require.  Remember, you don't know what they will require yet, and once you do, you'll find that it will be easier to simplify the XBee code that it would be to complexify it.

When debugging communication, ALWAYS START WITH THE LOGIC ANALYZER!!!!!!!  There is no other debugging technique that will give you such an accurate picture of what is going on with the communication.  The Logic Analyzer may have been a pain in previous quarters, but trust us, you will learn to love it (if Lab 9/10 didn't already help you with this).

Because of the usefulness of the Logic Analyzer, construct your circuits such that insertion of the Logic Analyzer is easy.

If Logic Analyzer messages look weird, double check that the frequency/sampling rate are correct.

When designing housing for electronics, don't forget to consider accessibility/removability.

Start mechanical design and prototype tests as early as possible.

Watch your current load, and make adjustments accordingly! 

Beware of floating ground.

Having uniform screw and nut sizes throughout your design can save time.

Before designing a major part or large component, sometimes it is better to search if there's more matured product sold online. This saves both time and efforts and helps save mechanical design spaces.

Good time management and repartition save you from staying up late.