Our project works. It was never tested in the water but the servos and the engine and the code all do exactly the way they should. I think we could have this bad boy sea worthy with one or two more days worth of work. The only real technical problem that we had was welding brass to brass. It was a nightmare. I now know just how difficult it is a material to work with and next time will use a spot welder to get the necessary heat.
That said this project taught me a lot about myself. For starters, I learned that no matter how much preparation work you do – it isn’t enough! So don’t let it stress you. This is important for the following reasons:
1. Stress isn’t good for you, so if you are working on a project for 6 to 8 weeks you are going to get sick or something. (As I did!)
2. The stress is also detrimental to the process. It’s harder to function when you are stressed, it impacts your relationship with your teammates, and generally impedes your cognitive ability.
The next thing I learned was that following instructions to the letter is no guarantee of success. This came as a tremendous shock to me because of my belief in procedure. The next time I do something like this I am determined to be more open to going with “my gut” when encountering unexpected problems. Evidence of this is the MASSIVE pile of leftover parts that our group had.
