Course Introduction

This course likely follows a different approach to learning and skill development than what you're used to. Your goal isn't just to finish the exercises, it's to become better at designing robots. Set the intention throughout the course to make the skills your own and to improve your thought process and workflow at every step. Enjoy the ride, and good luck.

Learning Intentions

Design and CAD are a set of interconnected skills. CAD is a space for you to work out ideas and develop them. You don't need to just learn the software; you need to learn the logic, organization, and workflows that make robot design faster and more intuitive.

We expect you to experiment and figure things out on your own. Learning is about forming connections, and there's often no better way to form connections than struggling a little bit. If you have a mentor hand-hold you or follow the instructions blindly, you'll miss out on the experiences that actually improve your design ability. Treat this as your own journey - your progress depends on your willingness to explore, fail, and try again.

That being said, the feedback cycle is a crucial part of this journey. This can be both self-driven (use a process to review your own work to find inefficiencies or common issues) and externally given (with mentors or veteran student designers on your team or online giving feedback about your CAD process and final design). If you get stuck or frustrated, don't hesitate to ask for a little advice - that's part of the process.

Copying and Improving In-Season

During the season, copying and referencing past designs is encouraged; you'll learn a ton by studying how other solved problems and adapting those ideas to your own designs. However, your ability to effectively use those references depends on the skills you build before the season starts.

The next page goes over a review structure to focus on improvement when going through the learning course.