An Overview of Our Build Team

The Build Team is one of our sub-teams, whose primary job is to assemble all the parts to create a functioning robot.

The first part of the robot-building process is brainstorming ideas for what subsystems the robot needs in order to perform the tasks specific to this year's game. This usually involves multiple group discussions and many people doodling their ideas on a whiteboard in front of the group.

Once our team has a grasp of what pieces are needed for the robot, they start putting together the plans to build it. This also involves the CAD Team to design the pieces that they want to create for the robot. When the designs are finalized and the parts are printed, the designs and parts are given over to the Build Team to start building. Think of a LEGO set, the CAD Team creates the instructions for the Build Team to follow to make it happen.

Before creating the final product, the Build Team goes through many practice runs.

The initial practice run is prototyping each part that will go into the robot. This is the first time they build each mechanism based on the CAD designs. During this prototyping step, it's a great time for the Build Team to work out any possible issues to ensure the mechanisms look and act as expected.

Once they go through the prototyping process, they start working on the "proto-bot". This gives team members a chance to put together all of the prototype parts into a robot to see how everything fits into the final product. If any spacing issues come up they can fix them without having to backtrack when working on the final competition robot. Also having the opportunity to work on the proto-bot allows the Build Team to make mistakes, learn, and grow without having the same pressure as working on the final robot.

The final part of the robot process is creating the competition robot, also referred to as "comp-bot". The Build Team takes extra time and care when working on the final product because there's no room to make any errors. This process usually takes longer, making sure that every mechanism fits and works the way it should. Once the robot is complete, it's time to take it to competition!

Between each competition, the Build Team tweaks the robot to make it more efficient at performing its designated tasks, and they fix any problems or issues that may have occurred at the competition.

We are so grateful for our Build Team, and what impact they have on our team to create such an amazing robot!