Business Homework

February 26, 2015 - Discussion Questions

1. Which would you choose? A sure $100, or a coin flip for $200 or nothing.
   • A sure $100.
2. Which would you choose? A sure loss of $100, or a coin flip for a loss of $200 or $0?
   • A sure loss of $100.
3. What is the difference in the two scenarios?
   • In one case, we are gaining, which puts us in the mindset that any gain is good and there is no need to bring chance into it. In the second, most people probably will take the chance so that they might not lose any money. Our team decided that we'd rather eliminate the risks. In a real design process, we think it's better to have no risk so you can design around losses, rather than have unexpected results.

January 22nd, 2015 - Concept Generation

There are several different subsystems in our Robot, and we have considered alternatives for many of them. Of few of these are listed below.

Kicking Mechanism:

• Pneumatic Kicker
  • Powerful and fast
  • Won't drain battery
  • Limited number of kicks
  • Takes up more space
• Solenoid
  • Small
  • Unlimited kicks (if we have enough power)
  • Can produce kicks of variable strength (fast or slow)
• Spring
  • Complex mechanical parts (e.g. requires extra motor to compress)
  • Must be reloaded between each kick
  • Difficult to have varied power kicks
  • Powerful kicks

Robot Body:

• Shapes
  • Hexagon
    • Already have some base CAD files that we can modify
    • Aligns the 3 omni-directional wheels correctly
    • Smaller edge for kicker
  • 12-sided polygon
    • Maximizes allowable area
    • Wheels can still align correctly
    • Much smaller surface for kicker
• Material
  • Aluminum
    • Strong and light
    • Very rigid, could be used for kicking.
    • Robust
    • Cannot easily use Laser-cutter to cut out, need to hand cut.
  • Acrylic
    • Cheap
    • Can be laser cut easily
    • Light
    • Much more flexible than aluminum
    • Fluorescent colors or reflections may cause issues with computer vision.

January 15th, 2015 - Customer Needs Process Table

• Who is the customer or a user?
  Researchers in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
• What information do you need to help identify the critical design features of your project?
  1. Customers needs.
  2. Rules for the game.
  3. Information about our competition, other researchers.
• What questions would you ask to get the information you need?
  1. How much money do you have available for this project?
  2. When do we need to deliver the product?
  3. What are the constraints that guide the design of the robot?
  4. What design features are a must, and what design features are nice to have?
  5. What existing features do they already have?
• Can you translate the user’s answers into product needs?
  1. "Nokia did a survey on their customers. Everyone said they wanted better cameras. They build a better camera phone, and no one wanted it" - Luna; "If I asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford. But to answer this question we say users answers should be directly correlated to our product needs; however as innovative engineers we ought to be able to take their answers and incorporate it into an even better product.
• How would you set a priority on the needs that are identified?
  1. By grouping customer needs.
  2. Making super groups.
  3. Establishing relative importance based on the goals of the product.
  4. Voting on them based on the following resources.
  • Time
  • Money
  • Ease of incorporation
  • Frequency of customers mentioning those things.

Jan 13th, 2015 - Body of Facts

This is a list of facts and assumption that will direct our project design.

Facts:

• We are to build a competitive autonomous robot.
• We will have an overhead camera that will gather images of the entire playing field.
• For the final competition we will have two robots on each team.
• Fact that we will have walls.
• Dimension of field 5'x10', Robots must fit 8"x8"x10"
• Each team will be assigned one of two colors for each games.
• Will not observe the off sides rule.
• Will be a violation if parts fall off robot.
• Robots cannot damage other robots, the ball, field, or spectators.
• No glue, tape or other adhesive to control ball.
• One robot cannot hold the ball.

Assumptions:

• We are the best team because Vecktor Krum is the best quidditch player ever.
• Assume that the overhead view consists of the complement of 4 cameras.
• Assume we can take the ball off the ground.
• Assume all necessary parts will be provide or that we can easily procure them as necessary.
• Assume that this won't work on the first try, be willing to dedicate time as needed.