2020 Week 1: Build Journal

The moment the 2020 game reveal ended, Nemesis was instantly bursting at the seams with ideas on how to solve the problems they would face.  After a speed read of the game manual, the team was ready to begin brainstorming. 

The team split up into small groups, where everyone made a priority list of what parts of the game were strategically most important. The entire team  finalized what areas of the game the team would focus on. Once the “what” was decided, the team separated to tackle the “how”; where every team member threw out any and all ideas they had.  Each group created a design using contributions from every member. The team reviewed all the designs, effectively giving the members insight into the ideas of others, and additional potential solutions to all of the tasks to be completed.  After two days of brainstorming, the prototyping phase was ready to begin.

The team decided that the main subsystems that needed to be built included a power cell ground intake, a conveyer belt, a way to launch game pieces into the power port, a drivetrain, and a way to climb.  The entire team was split into prototype groups and proceeded to design and test prototypes to effectively address the game challenge. Some succeeded wonderfully, while others failed. Ideas quickly evolved; some branched off into completely new directions, while others were tweaked and perfected. Major progress was made with the shooting mechanism and climber.  As the prototypes improved, ideas were combined and the outline of the robot started to take shape.

The build season has just begun, but Nemesis is ready to tackle any challenge the 2020 season may bring!