Exploring the Engineering Design Process (EDP for short)

The Spark-O-Matic Robotics team recently began digging into the process at the heart of robotics and other STEM project, the Engineering Design Process. It’s a way of looking at problems and things analytically and trying to figure them out.

First, we checked out this video by noted EDPer Mark Rober (very cool, about creating a rock skipping machine : https://www.facebook.com/watch/?extid=SMS-UNK-UNK-UNK-IOS_GK0T- GK1C&v=1682706928571199

Then we broke down the EDP for this season by looking back on the EDP we applied to our robot and the arm.

For step 1, Research, we started looking at videos for fixing our arm, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsWd_aW329o

Last season, we realized we did research robot designs, but we definitely could’ve done more.

That led us to CAD, Computer Aided Design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKq9ORkcHc

For step 2, Build a prototype, we realized we didn’t really build a prototype. We would build and then make adjustments, which seems fine for our purposes.

Step 3, Analysis, look at what works and what doesn’t

Step 4, Final product: The final product turned out great… except, as Kris says, the arm :(. Below, exhibit A: Kris and Chris with our robot – without the arm. But we’re going to keep going and figure this out in the off season. We will be victorious in our arm wrestling!