You know that part of a race when you can see the end but you still have the hardest part to go? Where you have to really truly give it your all and get it done? Well that’s about where our team is after this week. During our planning meeting last class, we all couldn’t believe that we only have six more weeks until we have to be ready for our final presentation.
Our brainstorming session went well. At first it was really only a couple of people coming up with ideas but as we became more comfortable with the idea of just getting any idea we have out there, no matter if it made it into our final plan, everyone started coming up with tons of ideas and soon we had sticky notes piling up! While it was overwhelming to see just how much we had to get done, it helped to make a timeline for the rest of the semester. With our plan we were able to better see how we could break down the work evenly and based on our strengths for the big push to our final presentation.
Our most important goal for this week was to finalize our BOM and get that list to the correct people so our materials could be ordered. I am pleased to report that we were successful in our goals this week. We spent a while researching exactly what we needed as well as comparing prices of the materials across different websites. Our final list included items such as a robotic grab claw kit and motors, motor controllers, an extension cable, a winch and pulley kit, and mounting hardware.
The other exciting news of the week is that our Industrial Designers Chris and Sean pitched us their idea for what our final presentation could look like. I don’t want to give too much away this early on, but it looks awesome and really highlights each major’s contribution to the project. This week showed us that the race will be long, but the effort we put in now will make the end result all the more worth it.
Next Week: 3D printing and further research.
By Becky Rosen, movie by Alexia Constanza