The Advice Column

• RC servos can draw a lot of current, and may drop the voltage from your power supply.
  
• Make circuits cleanly, using components with cut leads and connected with the shortest possible wires. Buy additional short jumper wires.Keep wires tidy with tape, zip ties, and shrink tube (not hot glue).
  
• Reserve laser cam time early. Show up on time. Have your files ready to go before showing up.
  
• The lab is poorly stocked with tools. BYO wires stippers, screwdrivers, and x-acto knives.
  
• Work at least a few days over Thanksgiving break.
  
• Working hardware should be ready early. It provides a nice platform to test software, and since something will be wrong, you will have time to fix it.
  
• Use google docs for as much as possible. Important data can be referenced quickly, by any teammate, from any computer.
  
• Define your project wisely. Adding parts costs money, demands more current, and takes more time to integrate. Ask "do we really need this?"
• Take the time to get your pseudocode well defined before you try to split up the coding, otherwise it will be difficult to integrate the parts from multiple people
• Look carefully at the built-in timer functions, there are a lot more available than just GetTime();
• When using arrays in C be careful to index properly to avoid accidentally changing values stored in other variables
  
• Type less, compile more. Debugging 5 lines is a lot easier than debugging 20 lines.
• Use version control on your code, this lets you back track to earlier working versions instead of being stuck the night before with something that's constantly crashing.
• Watch out for sudden current surges, especially when you have more than 2 servos running simultaneously.
• Make constant progress, be sure that someone on your team is working on the project every day. Front-loading work helps avoid all-nighters near the deadline.