Design and trade-offs

wow. two months since the last post. That's gotta be, like, a record in the blog-o-sphere (sphere-o-blogs?) or something.

(that was irony, btw)

So I brought legos into work. Did I mention that? An old technic 8055 set that's pretty complete (with motor even!) that I got when I was...oh...12 or 13. So it's approaching 20 years old. And still runs great!

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah...so I'm sorting out the various girders and pieces on my desk (good zenish mind clearing activity, that) and I had a thought. I'd popped off an email to my manager re: team building and some scenerios, one of which was essentially "buy a bunch of mindstorms kits, put folks in teams, and have them each design something to accomplish a task". Think officespace meets junkyard wars. Maybe 2-3 hours, everyone has the same pieces...maybe a robot to climb a string looped over a cube wall or somesuch.

Anyway..I'm getting lost again. Oh yeah, sorting legos. Team building. Set # of pieces to accomplish a goal. And realizing this is design. You have constraints (only 5 24 tooth gearwheels, 8 1x16 girders, and 24 pins) How do you design the best you can with what you have? What are your constants, constraints? And how can you use those tools in perhaps ways you'd never thought of before to accomplish the same goal?

Short thought.