Engineering Process

An engineering process is a methodical series of steps that engineers use in creating functional products and processes.

The diagram on the right shows the common steps in our engineering process. →

Below you will find the process that we follow at Trobotics, Inc for developing our robotics products.

Define the Problem: On Kick Off Day, we are given a set of Generic and Game Specific Rules. We make sure that everyone reads these rules before our first practice after Kick Off. At our first practice, we review the Game Theme Animation Video and review the Game rules to find out what tasks our robot will have to do.

Background Research: We do research on the industries that produce products related with this year’s game theme. We also plan a field trip to a local business in our area to give us more information on how our game theme correlates to an actual business in our home town.

Specify Requirements: We make a list of everything our robot needs to do based on our review of the game rules.

Brainstorm, Evaluate, and Choose a Solution: We write down everyone’s ideas and go through each one. Then we discuss the pros and cons of each idea.

Develop and Prototype a Solution: After determining which design ideas we like best from the brainstorming phase, we begin making prototypes of our solutions that we want to test.

Test Solution: We test each prototype to see if it can perform all the tasks specified in the Game Rules. If the solution only partially meets requirements or does not meet them at all, we go back to developing and prototyping. We will keep testing the solution until we have one that meets requirements.

Communicate Results: Once we have a prototype that meets all the requirements, we share the results with manufacturing. Then they produce the final product we bring to competition.