Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

I had to look up 354. G-House Pirates bringing it strong this year.

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

That was actually a typo, but they came to FLR once and were a great deal of fun. They had an enormous pirate flag rise out of their robot during the end game, just because.

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

I have to say, I originally was leaning towards the negative opinion of Ri3D, thinking that it does create tunnel vision.
I went to calculus class, and by the end of it my opinion had changed. It actually had nothing to do with the class itself, just my mind wandering into robot-realm as it often does.

I thought over the series of events that lead me to learning so much from FIRST. The first of these events was getting addicted. My 'addiction' lead to countless hours spent looking up designs from top teams (I've always loved 254's style) and reading why they did what they did. I would then take those concepts and apply them to my own CAD designs.
The drive trains that I spat out often looked very similar to popular designs, and from someone else may have looked like I just stole designs. What really happened is I learned about different components of different drive trains and the reasoning behind them, and then applied that knowledge to combine components so that it is optimized for certain goals (weight, minimal resources, easy manufacturing, etc).

As has been mentioned a few times in this thread, there's no point in reinventing the wheel. A huge part of engineering is learning from the work others have already done, and using that to engineer it further.

The key to all of this working is having the right mindset, following the right process, and actually learning from other designs, not just copying them.


All of that really just leads up to this feedback for Ri3D:

More documentation on the brainstorming, the prototyping, and the rationale behind the decisions.
In other words, emphasis on the engineering.

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

Yup. If you want it to be bad for your team, it can be. If you want it to be good for your team, it can be.

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

What robot in three days provides is information. Information about possible designs, information about the game, ect. In my limited experience more information is always better and if at any point it's not I reevaluate how I'm using the information. I think the FIRST community benefits from sharing ideas more so than it would if we did not, this is just a case of sharing a lot of good ideas all at once.

In addition I think especially with FIVE 72 hour robots being built this year the variety will help with potential tunnel vision a lot. Personally I can't wait till more engineers realize this is a great excuse to play in a shop for 3 days straight and call it work. This is all great fun.

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

In retrospect, I suppose my words did seem harsh but my general feeling is that there are many places where students can go to get ideas once the game is announced, like visiting team's web sites and looking into previous games that had similar tasks. I just feel that presenting completed robots is going a bit too far. As videos start appearing on Youtube during the build period, they often appear a bit too late to radically alter your design approach. There was a year when we saw a video late into the build period from the Robonauts that so greatly influenced us that we drastically changed our robot design and the results were incredible. But we were struggling that year and somewhat desperate. Perhaps you can tell me what you think the value of the 3 day builds are? Don't get me wrong, they are a great help and I am in many ways grateful to see them. Teams benefit from them but are they a good thing for the students? This is my concern.

-BOB

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

Bob,

I can understand your frustration and concerns, but I think you ought to check out this thread - http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=123152

You have to realize, each year there will be teams who are struggling and are desperate; however, they aren't the only ones who stand to benefit from some outside mentor support. The discussion in that thread is pretty great, and has some posts with opinions from both sides of the spectrum.

I believe this can do more good than harm, but we'll just have to wait and see.

-Akash

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

My students and I thoroughly enjoyed the Ri3D last year. This year in FTC, a group did an FTC robot in a week. Students not only watched but also participated in the chat and design of the robot.

With 5 robots being done this year, I do not believe we have to worry about tunnel vision of a design. I think it is also good for teams to see how others go about brainstorming, designing and decision making that lead to a final design. Of course with the schedule reduced to just 72 hours, spectators and observers also miss out on the iteration/prototyping phase as well.

I know our team looks to many other teams for inspiration. I think that the sharing of ideas and designs within FIRST only makes all of us better. I know that I personally have benefited from such mentors as Andy Baker, Mark Coors, JVN, SRippetoe, Paul Copioli , Bertman, Jim Zondag and many others. These robot builds not only provide great robots but they also provide glimpses into these great mentors.

Re: Robot in 3 Days : Feedback
 

I have yet to hear from a student who was negatively affected by Ri3D. All of the claims that somehow Ri3D detract from creativity from students have yet to provide even a little bit of evidence beyond rhetoric that this phenomenon actually occurs.

If experimental evidence (in the upcoming year) reveals that many students were negatively affected by Ri3D, then it's a different story than the idle speculation going on right now. It seems dangerous and premature to blame Ri3D for stifling creativity when we only have one small data point from last year.