Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I have done no "in depth analysis", no trade studies. I haven't spent hours thinking about the issues, the ethics, and the morals. I won't make a passionate statement about how it should be done, because I don't know.

What I have noticed since the start of RI3D and others, is that instead of a dizzying array of different ideas at each regional, some awesome, some not so much, some that work others that fail, we now have a lot more "vanilla pudding". Most of the robots end up being a clone or a derivative of one of the robots built in the videos. Yes, more of the robots work better than in the past, but there are fewer "wow, that is cool! I never would have thought of that!" moments.

I don't think RI3D is evil, but I do think it has reduced the level of creativity, and given teams an easy way out that too many are taking. It's like using a cheat code in video game, yeah you get past the boss, but it's not as satisfying, and the game is not as exciting. (this is an analogy only, I am not saying that RI3D is "cheating")

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

This is perhaps the most level headed argument yet, and perhaps the opinion that I currently sit at.

The bad teams are going to do bad, and the good teams are going to well, but it seems that the diversity and creativity you used to see in the middle "class" just isn't there anymore.

With that being said, the value of Ri3D is undeniable. Being able to get 24 hours worth of design/testing/development from some pretty impressive people is just too good to pass up. Ri3D has helped to raise the middle-lower tiers and helped to give the middle-upper tiers a solid foundation, and that's not benefit that I'm willing to just throw away.

The challenge for me is how do I balance Ri3D's help with the creativity and design opportunities for my team and me.

This is why my team has implemented a relatively simple set of checks to allow our folks to do our fair share of prototyping and designing and integrate the Ri3D teams' findings, results, and builds to enhance our process.

- Sunny G.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I am convinced that---Without the 3 day robot build, most teams would have tried to build a catapult and the teams with the best mentors would have succeeded while many would have failed. Experience in the art of design is passed on in volume instead of one on one but it is passed on. After all, how many ways can one build a ball pick-up, a catapult or for that matter a wheel.
Creativity is taking what is learned in 3 days and applying tweaks to perfect a design.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I guess my problem with this line of reasoning, and why I don't really subscribe to the "vanilla pudding" argument, is because I haven't noticed any decline in "wow, that is cool!" moments since Ri3D started.

I have also not done any in depth analysis but my anecdotal evidence directly contradicts yours (a common problem with anecdotal evidence) so I tend to disagree with the premise that Ri3D is stifling creativity at all. Certainly it's not any more damaging then looking at past games or robots.

Perhaps the onus is now on us as mentors to leverage the videos themselves as a teaching experience, and encourage students to take creative steps beyond those shown. Or have them propose something completely different that they can show is better.

TL;DR: I haven't seen any decrease in FRC creativity, and I fail to see what everyone has gotten so worked up about.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Agreed. I guess the problem isn't with the information that Ri3D's provides team, It's how they use it. It's up to the leaders of the team to help guild them in how the students use the wealth of info they are getting. My team sees RBi3D's a bit differently. We see this as a benchmark to compare our designs to. We know a lot of folks are going to be using some variation of what they see. We need to make sure that we are designing something that performs at or above what comes out of the 3 day builds.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

While I generally agree with your post, I think this point could use some addressing. "Bad teams" and "good teams" are not absolutes. A "bad team" is often a team that is still getting enough experience to be a "mediocre team". One of the things that Ri3D offers is an example path from concept to completion. Last year our team used it as something similar to a team's build blog. We could come up with ideas fairly well, but had trouble with the "how do you assemble that properly" part.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Martin, do you feel that with this loss of creativity there has also been a loss of inspiration? Specifically for teams in the lower quartile of performance, do you think the students on those teams are more inspired by a creative solution that may score a grand total of 1 point all season or by a less creative solution that may reliably score even if it isn't going to win many events?

Basically, does "raising the floor" help increase inspiration? Are there other methods we could go about doing this without impacting creativity?

Not attacking your view, just curious. The crux of the anti Ri3D/BB arguments seems to think that Creativity is correlated with Inspiration and Performance is not correlated with Inspiration.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I don't think what you are seeing is a direct result of RI3D but more of a result of the vanilla nature of the games since they started, especially last year.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

The problem with most long running games is a meta is formed. Unless a game is perfectly balanced in such a way 9 times out of 10 there is going to be one dominate train of thought on how things should be done. Last year a defining game analysis moment I heard over and over was
You need to get a ball over a truss into a goal within a shorter height limit (in most circumstances) this led to -> launching the ball into the goal
Yeah you could do it in other ways you could in theory drive up to the goal and use an elevator to get it into the high goal but does it make sense to do that?
I believe the biggest influence on robot diversity is not "what are the high level teams doing" first and foremost it is "what is the obvious solution and how do we get there" (no disrespect to high tier teams.)
The only issue I have with BuildBlitz and Ri3D is its so well done and so captivating to a lot of students that they there is an entire world outside of youtube and the internet where they can pull designs from. As long as students learn to emulate and improve on what they see everywhere I'm cool.
Oh yeah thats the other thing I think all these are great starting points for any team but what really astonished me the most after seeing those high-angle single side pickup robots is that each team added something different to it. I mean the diversity is there it is just at a smaller scale.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Part of being inspired to enter a STEM field is the realization that "hey, I can do this!". If FIRST published a set of plans, and the kids just followed the plans, I doubt they would get that feeling. While I understand that Ri3D and others is not a set of plans, I do believe that a teenager (notorious for taking the easy way out) will have a tendency to watch the videos rather than try to come up with their own unique concept.
The biggest challenge we as mentors face is to reign in our own enthusiasm and let the kids come up ideas. I absolutely believe that we can help, influence, guide and correct without giving them the answer on a silver platter.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

And I think that with resources like Ri3D to use as guides, those kids can, in a way, get their feet wet without drowning. Watching the videos points them in the right direction, but it doesn't give them everything they need. If we take the mean team that actually "relies" on Ri3D for design inspiration (since I think this population is what people are focusing on), they're also more likely than others to be the ones that don't have access to all the fancy tools and big sponsor help. They're the ones who will need to improvise a little and make do with what they have.

Imagine for Ultimate Ascent that a team sees Ri3D's pneumatic-wheeled shooter and thinks, "Hey, that's probably what we should do," but then finds out that they don't have any pneumatic wheels that will work. Now their challenge is to replace those wheels with ones they can find that will still suffice. That's something that can be tackled by said team, and they're learning how to solve problems at that level. This episode is repeated a number of different times, each of relatively small scale. Trying to start from scratch would have been monumentally over their heads, but now it's broken down into bite-sized problems that still allow them to grow.

Essentially, Ri3D is the only vehicle by which some teams can reach that "Hey, I can do this!" moment, while without it all they would have said was "I guess I can't."

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

FRC Season
-1 Figure out the game
-2 Build a robot to play the game
-3 Show up with two other robots and play
-4 Adjust your strategy

I'm super thrilled about the new 2015I5D. I get to see 5-7 teams do steps one and two in 3 days. And then I get to see three top mentors (Paul, Karthik and JVN) talk about the last two steps. The only way it could get better is to have a Poof talk about step 4 along with the others. In the last 3 years their "oh, well then, we could do THIS" has been a real game changer.

I look at this as a floats all boats opportunity. I love the chance for teams that don't have a clue can get one, teams that do OK can get some added info, and teams that have been on the top in the past hear the footsteps of others.

We've talked lots about team retention, teams that get crushed don't come back. This is one of the few ways for them to see quality in action and maybe make the second and third years.

I'd rather watch events where all robots move and all robots score. Based on the "2015 - Ice Game", I'd rather see 12-11 winners vs 54-2.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

After my experience mentoring inner city schools that have zero experience with any sort of true hands on activities, these are an amazing this. These kids didn't have the drive to even want to do something their school forced on them...but then they see these people (vex and Ri3d) doing these builds and it gives them hope that this challenge can be accomplished and then they take over from there. These are targeted to that audience. The teams that have zero engineers and a teacher as the head mentor who really doesn't want to be there. If you don't want your team to see them, don't show them to the team. But if you think that these limit teams abilities and thinking paths...please wait a few more years to collect good data. Last years game was fairly straight forward for the major designs; this led to a ton of people speculating that this persuaded a majority of the teams.
-Ronnie

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

What's the best lesson I've learned from Ri3D? Hearing Paul and John discuss last year (paraphrasing) that the biggest challenge they both had was finding where they put the tool they were just using and finding the right size and length fastener they need at the moment. I'm always inspired by the intricate designs that these engineers come up with regardless of the timeframe, but thanks for being human so I feel less stupid.