Here at Metea Valley Robotics, we strive to build the best robots we can. In order to build a good robot, there are certain steps a team should take.
These steps are known as the Engineering Process. Below are the steps a team should follow in order to succeed in building the best robot they can:
Each year, VRC provides students with a detailed description and explaination of that year's competition. In short, they are describing a problem that needs to be solved. There, you already know what you're solving for!
So you know the problem. Now what? A team should look into what the competition is and what type of robot they may need/use.
Typically, a team must follow certain rules when building a robot or playing it on the field. A team should always look into these guidlines beforehand so they don't skip over essential details. Another requirement which a team should identify is what they actually need to build the robot. Parts? A laptop?
This one is quite self-explanatory. A team should formulate ideas on what the robot will look like and how it will function. Brainstorm and share any ideas that come to mind and write them down (For this, you should use your engineering notebook). Once you develop some ideas, start sketching out different parts of the robot.
Start building the "prototype" of your robot using the ideas and designs you listed.
During the testing phase, a team should make sure all components of the robot work as intented (without breaking). If a certain aspect of your prototype failed to perform its intended task, take some time and debug the problem. Find out the root of the problem and fix it.
Typically, no robot is perfect on the first try. You are expected to fail many times. If the robot worked, great! Think of ways to improve upon what you already have done. If it didn't work as intended, revise! You may have to go back to the drawing board if things go really wrong with the robot.
The structure of our code is important when programming a robot. Laying out the code helps to look at the general idea of all the robot's inner functions and expands on them. Before getting into the programming of the robot, a team must first decide on what program they will use. There are several different IDE's for VEX Robotics, but two of the more significant ones include VexCode and Vex Pros. They are both great code IDE's, and each have their own pros and cons. After deciding on the program, we must then familiarize ourselves with it and begin programming shortly after. The programming stage of robotics is key to creating a good robot. You must have code that is both organized/easy to navigate and effective. The use of variables will greatly help in keeping the code clean and less complicated while minimizing room for error.