Lessons learned

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During the season, we made a few mistakes. Okay, we made a lot of mistakes, but that is not to say we did not learn from them. Aside from learning everything there is to know about the FIRST Robotics Competition due to the fact that only two of our members have had previous experience with FRC, and with only four members had competed in FIRST events, we have come a long way as a newbie team. We learned Personal Protective Equipment, Computer-Aided Design, electrical and mechanical skills. Considering the majority of our team had never done robotics before,  we needed to be persistent and embrace the mistakes that we made.

 

Firstly, we learned that simple solutions are often the best solutions. We have gone through many sketches, prototypes, and ideas to get to our current robot, but in a lot of cases, we were overthinking the design. Our current robot has a simple design that makes it very reliable, and there are fewer things that could fail during a match. We have learned from veteran teams that a finished working robot is better than one that is ‘almost working’. Project Bucephulas has been an incredible support system to Deakin Velocity. They have guided us in the right direction to kickstart our team. From their expertise, we have come to realize that we should focus on completing one goal before jumping ahead and having unrealistic goals. 

 

After many parts that have been incorrectly made, we now know the importance of prototyping. There were numerous times where parts were incorrect due to miscommunication or lack of planning. Had we have been more careful with our measurements and always have someone else check our work, we could have resulted in more accurate parts and have had more practical use of a prototype that was made from a material that was more cost-efficient. A rule of thumb is to always "measure twice, cut once"

 

Thirdly, we have learned to double-check our work. Whether that be spelling and grammar, wiring, or measurements, it is crucial to double-check our work before we make changes to the essential components of our robot. We constantly hear the phrase ‘measure twice cut once,’ and it is vital in a competition like FRC to put that into action and be confident in our preparation before executing it.

 

One of the biggest lessons we learned was to document everything. When team members are out of the loop or have been absent, it can be helpful to have documentation that describes and states every modification that has been made on the robot. It can also help if you lose data, such as drawings or programming, you can retrieve an accurate version of the lost work. It also helps our team members learn from one another and to be exposed to something new.

 

A take-home message for all members of our team would be job delegation. Through COVID isolation, we learned that a lot of tasks could be done from home, which would mean that we don’t require all team members on workshop premesis. A few of our team members are employed, so this would mean they could go to work during the day and do their FIRST work after hours.

 

Beginning our FIRST journey as a rookie, we knew that we had a lot to learn. Although we are eternally grateful for our skilled and knowledgeable mentors. We have established that we can never have enough of them. Learning from more mentors would allow us to have new perspectives and learn different ways of doing things. We have come to realize that we will take as many mentors as we can get.

 

Being a very small team with few mentors, we have had many challenges. Although we are extremely proud of the work we have delivered so far. As a team of 13 members, we seem to have students in many subgroups. We strive to produce our best work regardless of our circumstances. 

 

During the season we were bound to make mistakes, but we took our mistakes onboard and acknowledge what changes we can improve for next time to make our team stronger than ever. Our mistakes will make us more efficient at making our robot next season as we will not repeat the same mistakes. All in all, our team has enjoyed building the robot and getting a lot more knowledge and wisdom in mechatronic engineering and although we didn’t get to compete this year, we are still really proud of what we have achieved.

 

2020 is definitely a lesson in itself, we have conquered through a time of challenges but we know the best is yet to come. We cannot wait to see the FIRST community come back better than ever. 

 

“I can accept failure, everybody fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

-Michael Jordan