A team describes its season as follows. Identify the 2 process errors and state what should have happened instead.
Week 1 Read the game manual once as a team. Agreed the high goal
was the priority. Someone suggested a linear slide with a
claw; everyone liked it, so that became the plan.
Week 2-6 Built the slide and claw out of machined aluminum. Took
longer than expected because of the custom brackets.
Week 7 First test. The claw grips the element reliably, but it
takes about 4 seconds to align the robot before the claw
closes, so a full cycle is 14 seconds instead of the 8
seconds the team assumed.
Week 8 Team decides to keep the mechanism because of the amount
of work already invested, and to practice driving faster.
Show answers
Error 1 - No alternatives were generated. One concept was proposed in week one and adopted because the group liked it. There was nothing to compare it against, so the team never learned whether a funnel, a roller intake, or a passive design would have had a shorter alignment time. The fix is a generating block producing several concepts, a constraint screen, and rough prototypes of the top two before committing.
Week 1 Generate 6 concepts, screen against constraints,
prototype the top 2 in cardboard and scrap.
Error 2 - The competition version was built before the concept was tested. Six weeks of machined aluminum went in before anyone measured a cycle time. The 8 second assumption, which was the entire basis of the strategy, went unchecked until week seven. A rough prototype in week two would have exposed the 4 second alignment problem while there was still time to change the concept.
Week 2 Rough prototype, measure real cycle time,
compare against the 8 s requirement.
On the week 8 decision: keeping the mechanism because of the work already invested is the sunk cost trap. The hours spent are gone either way; the only question is which robot scores more in the remaining weeks. That question should be answered on its merits, not on the investment.
---