It really helps to know what you want to do, before getting all the stuff out. My design brief for QuAD was as follows:

• It had to be capable of actually doing something. I had some ping-pong balls so moving those around looked like an obvious idea.
• When it broke, the RCX mustn't fall on the ground. In truth it's quite rugged and normally all that happens is that the batteries fall out, but nonetheless it's an expensive thing to break.
• It had to be ready by the time Sue got home. The box is way too big to disguise, way too expensive to nonchalantly ignore. Having something that worked was the only solution.

 
 

• Build the Frame
• Build the Grab
• Make it Move
• QuAD, Fetch... (the final program)