Early Testing
With some simple hardboard mockups and a lot of imagination, we began preliminary testing on the robot’s modules, testing viability, chance to fail, and the stress our hardware would be under. This lead to more shifts in the design, and a few trips back to the drawing board.
Modular Prototyping
After working out some kinks, the modules moved on to become powered devices, and more complicated testing began. Voltage/current testing began to become important, and the electrical aspects of the process began to be very important to not overlook.
Integration Testing
With the electrical aspects in place, and redesigns to the mechanics of the design making it more solid than ever, software began to be tested. Pickup sequences, navigation, communication – all was important as we moved closer to competition day.
Final Versions
After some small tweaks and some large ones, we began to tune the robot as a whole, ensuring it could work and behave as expected every time.