Lessons Learnt

Lessons Learnt as a Group:

As a group, we found that knowing everyone's strengths and weaknesses was critical to the success of our project. We put each member in charge of an area such as prototyping, analysis, or admin (background, posters, videos, etc.), with each person becoming a subject matter expert. Doing so allowed us to spend less time catching each other up to speed, and made communication very clear. If you needed to know about the prototype, you asked the person in charge of the prototype. If you needed to know about analysis, you asked the person in charge of the analysis. There was no ambiguity when it came to responsibilities and who should do what.
Having clear communications also helped to improve the rate at which work could be done. Our group took advantage of Discord and Google Drive to quickly communicate and transfer information. having a mode of communication that everyone was active on and that supported multiple file types allowed quick communication. Compared to SMS, Discord's ability to send code, images, and videos prevented the need to transfer files using another third-party service. This allowed information to be centralized on one platform. Additional features such as video calling, and sharing screens, allowed collaboration where visuals were a lot more effective than mere text. Whenever our group ran into a blocker that inhibited our ability to progress, Discord was our first option in reaching out to different members.
One person per CAD model! This was a dogma that our group adhered to throughout the design process. With each person experienced at a different CAD program, we decided to have only one person in charge of each CAD model at a time. This avoided issues with constantly transferring models, or fighting with different versions of SolidWorks. While this may not always be the correct answer, the relatively simplistic CAD models present made it a good solution for this project. In the cases where we did need to transfer files, sharing CAD files as STEP files was often sufficient.
When building, it was often most effective to have one person do most of the construction and assembly. Given that our prototypes were not labor intensive, having one individual make all the parts ensured consistency across the build phase of the project. Once again, this centralization of knowledge helped to avoid fit issues, communication mistakes, and allowed quick pivots in the prototypes where necessary.

Tips for Future Groups:

Many of the lessons that we learnt as a group can be directly applied as tips for future groups. However, here are a few extra tips.

Define group dynamics and roles early! Have a good idea of who is better at kinematic analysis and programming, who excels at presentations and editing, and who is best at mechanical design and prototyping. Your previous two build assignments should give a general idea of each group member's ability already.
Make sure that someone becomes very comfortable with kinematic analysis using their program of choice. This will become crucial when doing the kinematic analysis for the mechanism design. The reason that we favor one person over multiple is that transferring code and working on someone else's code is typically difficult with significant delays when switching. This is especially true for mechanical engineers, who can have a wide range of coding experiences.
If you are relying on TIW 3D printers, have every member of your group trained on them! Contrary to the most of the other advice about having one person be an expert, the TIW printers are often busy, so having multiple members of the team who can use them can greatly improve printing efficiency, especially when it comes to the weeks leading up to finals, when everyone is looking to build their project. The same advice stands for laser cutters, though to a lesser degree. Ideally, your team has some manufacturing capabilities outside of school such as their own 3D printer.
Make sure to read the project guidelines and rubrics ahead of time! Knowing what is coming up (such as the project poster) helps to prepare and plan effectively. The class announcements may not always fully capture all the requirements for a given assignment.
Standardize parts off-the-shelf parts as much as possible! Sticking to metric components throughout our build has made it much easier to ensure that we have the hardware that we need.
Build early and fail early! Don't wait to finalize the entire design before prototyping. Prototype elements that you are uncertain about early so that you can make any changes that are needed before you commit more effort into a design that is destined to fail.
Talk to your TAs! They are on your side and want you to succeed. Make sure to thoroughly define the scope of your project with them early on! If you get conflicting advice from multiple TAs, please ask your professor!
Talk to your TAs part 2! If you run into technical issues, or want ideas for an implementation of a mechanism, ask your TAs! many of them have taken the course before you, and are well equipped to give you guidance.
Ordering parts! If you know that you need a part, or if a part is an unknown/potential source of failure, order it early! This way, if the part doesn't work as intended, you still have time to order another part and change it!
Draw inspiration from other mechanisms and projects! We are always standing on the shoulder of giants, so leverage what has been done in the past! Just make sure that you are putting your own novel twist into the project!

Acknowledgements:

First and foremost, we would like to thank professor Rohit Varghese for providing us the tools and knowledge necessary for the project to be a success. His lectures along with his industry knowledge helped to guide us to a successful project. Nuggets of wisdom such as standardizing on metric components and having multiple members with 3D printing capabilities were directly from him. His passion for the class is apparent, and we could not have asked for a better professor.
Next, we would like to thank Ashwin Hingwe for his knowledge and support as a TA. He demonstrated an incredibly wide breadth of knowledge in robotics, encompassing the mechanical, electrical, and programming aspects. His friendly demeanor paired with his ability made him one of the first people that we reached out to when we had issues.
We would also like to thank Victor Guzman. His employment at TIW helped to open many doors and enabled us to get our training for laser cutting done early in the semester. In addition, his willingness to open at times outside of normal TIW operating hours helped to make our project a reality.

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