Gems of Wisdom

Start by working separately on individual modules to maximize efficiency. As the project moves along, start working more as a team for debugging and high level development to maximize creativity.

Three full meals a day, with the proper amounts of vitamins and minerals, is an excellent way to provide energy for robot building, as well as life.

Create test functions in software that can quickly determine whether the hardware is functioning properly.

Don't start soldering circuits until they are tested on breadboards.

Pay attention to issues of noise, even if it hasn't been covered in the lecture yet (demand that the TAs explain it to you).

When debugging, always look at your hardware (circuits) first.

Make sure you make your hardware conducive to testing. Have a way to probe all of your circuits even after they have been assembled into the robot.

ALWAYS put failure recovery code into your software. The signal conditions of the final competition were markedly different than those observed in the lab.

Mornings are always the quietest in the lab.

Encoders are a great way to mitigate battery voltage fluctuation, and they are not that hard to do.

Light robots are better.

Make your design as modular as possible.

Have hardware done early to provide lots of time for integration and debugging.

Meet up regularly but do spend sometimes working alone in the lab.

Have a "plan B"

Get check off early THEN improve the performance of your robot

Ask TAs/Matt about wiring, soldering before starting your perf boards

Do not put more than 4 chips on a perfboard. 3 is optimal.

Avoid potentiometers on perfboards. They decrease the robustness of your circuit