Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Click here to watch our video announcement for Ri3D 2015


From our blog: Robotin3Days.com

We're looking forward to 2015 and can't wait to get started! More information coming soon!

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I'm curious - what's your reasoning behind doing the pure Ri3D again this year, compared to the resources/prototyping model that Build Blitz is doing?

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Because they created the idea? Why would they let another group of builders affect what they want to do?

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Fair enough, but I know that Build Blitz listened to community feedback and adjusted their plans accordingly. I was hoping to foster some sort of discussion with the Ri3D folks, since the Build Blitz people made their point with the announcement earlier in the month.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I think it's fine. More resources are better IMO.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Build Blitz has decided that giving a full robot to the community is some how cheating or is giving teams a 'solution' that is not organic (sorry if this belief is wrong. This is coming from the "feed back" you were speaking of.) Ri3D thinks otherwise. Neither is right and neither is wrong.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Because the feedback that led to the Build Blitz change wasn't a definitive, "full robots are bad". Build Blitz viewed the overall feedback for 3-day builds one way and made the changes they felt would make it a better experience, Ri3D viewed it a different way and made the changes they felt would make it a better experience.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

This is not true.

Yes, Build Blitz will not be building full robots this year, but that's not because we think that doing so would be "cheating". We're very appreciative of Ri3D teams are doing with full robots, and think that these full robot builds can be both educational and inspirational experiences for the entire FRC community. Part of the reason we felt comfortable not doing full robots is because we knew that there would be a multitude of groups doing full robots that many members of this community want to see. Build Blitz is going to be focusing on developing game specific resources and examples to help teams for the 2015 season. Combining what we're doing with what the Ri3D groups will collectively raise the bar for all teams who seek out these resources. Remember it's not about one methodology being right or better than the other, it's about providing a diverse set of resources such that teams have a spectrum of options to choose from.

In summation, we're excited to see what each of the seven Ri3D groups come up with and can't wait to see how the community uses all of these resources to raise the level of play for the 2015 season.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I just want to offer my own, unaffiliated opinion and say that I support Ri3D's choice to continue with the full build, just as I have approved of its existence all along. I think there is likely a pretty silent majority (or at least a sizable minority) of FRCers who appreciate the good that Ri3D has brought to the competitions the last two years. Some, of course, choose to take the work they see the Ri3D teams do and base their designs heavily off that. Some use the knowledge to inform their prototyping, aim for or steer away from certain design aspects, and end up with robots that no one would accuse of being "Ri3D copies." Still others are just thankful that the level of play has gone up at their competitions, and that they less frequently run into alliance members who can't contribute to their matches at all.

Look around CD. Every time someone makes an angry or slanderous post about the best teams, the community's constructive criticism is "don't try to bring the top down, focus on bringing the bottom up." Ri3D has had more far-reaching impact to that effect than any other institution in recent memory, but this point seems to get lost in the shuffle. For this, much praise is due, and I think their legacy should acknowledge that more than the blowback they've received.

As a side note, for an analysis of the "killing creativity" claim, check out the very good post that Chris is me made in another thread.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

For a rookie team three years ago, we appreciated Ri3D's build as a way to get our students that were new to FRC ideas of the build process. It was a invaluable resource. Looking at past seasons and the amount of resources from other teams on their finished robots and assistance from nearby teams were helpful, but having that years's task and the video documentation of the process was another great resource. I can say without a doubt, the creativity still flowed and we still had to figure out how to design, make parts, build, wire, and most challenging, at the time, program our robot to do what we wanted. Ri3D provided us a great launching point.

From what I have noticed is that while the games have changed, some of the game pieces and how to shoot or pickup those pieces have repeated themselves. Is looking back at teams previous robots and how they handle games pieces killing team creativity or just a good way to do research? For a young team having teams and Ri3D as inspiration is a great thing. It ends up being virtual mentorship for us. Looking forward to see Build Blitz, AndyMark and Ri3D process again this year.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

We agree. As a rookie team last year, we knew what we wanted a robot to do, but were limited to what we had to build to do it. The Ri3D videos helped bridge that gap. We probably won't look at those videos this year until after our design and build, but it is an excellent resource for rookies.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

After reading both threads, allow me to give another perspective.

One of the dangers of Ri3D IMHO is that it "allows" students to not develop their own creative juices. I heard the tale from another mentor on a team "far far away": last year his team was faced with a technical issue he thought he could use in a teachable moment as a way to analyze and find solutions to problems. He told me of his dismay when the students said "let's check the video", meaning the Ri3D clips on YouTube!

I do see the value of allowing under-resourced teams (aren't they all?) to quickly target better solutions rather than pursue failing ideas (cough, my team some years, cough), but it seems now teams that simply wait a few days don't have to "waste time" with the heavy lifting of design, just copy what they see.

A decade ago ago Team 811 discovered (and adopted) the Team MOE Collaborative Robot Design process, where we spend three days analyzing the game, developing strategies, fostering concepts, and ultimately zero in an overall design by Monday after Kick-Off, and it has served us well for years. Last year we built an amazing robot that won at Week Zero, semi-finals at GSD, Finalist at WPI (one missed autonomous shot shy of winner!), semi-finals at NE-CMP (clutch failure), competed at St.Louis, and won at Mayhem and RiverRage, yet we still have kids to this day complaining that our design should have matched one of the Ri3D bots. Huh??

Bottom line: If Vex Build Blitz is going to focus on elements and not the whole design, I'm all for it! Maybe Ri3D could consider emulation.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

My team was met with the same challenge last year. They ran into a technical issue that they couldn't figure out how to solve. They ended up watching a Ri3D video and it inspired them to come up with a creative improvement to their catapult. In the end, the robot's catapult didn't look anything like a Ri3D robot.

That's why I am a supporter of Ri3D, and why I pushed to start the 'Snow Problem team in Minnesota. Every team is different and uses resources for different things, it isn't required anyone watches Ri3D nor is it required they watch the new Build Blitz stuff. In the end, I believe Ri3D/Build Blitz make FIRST more inspirational.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I strongly support Ri3D, and am very glad that they are doing it again this year with more teams.

I think that creativity takes many forms, and I strongly believe that just as much creativity can come out of looking at an existing solution and adapting it as much as coming up with an idea "from scratch," though I do believe that most creativity in FRC stems from adapting an existing object or mechanical device concept used in the wider world into an FRC application (buckets in 2013, etc). There is an awful lot more time put into "detail the concept and executing" in FRC, which are heavily pushed toward success/failure by the initial design decision.

Ri3D provides teams with several tested solutions. Teams are able to prototype and build their own solutions, but they know there is a tested solution to fall back to if needed even at the end of week 1.

Having had multiples of both struggling and successful years, there is a lot more learning that happens with the students on tweaking and improving a machine that works than struggling to make a machine work at all.

Robots that at their core use Ri3D concepts to speed prototyping and overall layout design can still develop original mechanisms that win creativity awards.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Do you have a link/file to MOE's design process? I couldn't find one when I searched.

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.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

Having mentored a team last you for the first time in almost a decade, it was challenging to get them to be creative and take what they learned from Ri3D and toss it. I didn't want a Ri3D clone, and it was because I felt like they wouldn't get the same sense of accomplishment that I did when I was on a team. That being said, I feel that they still took Ri3D and learned from it, and they saw just what could be done if you tried hard enough. Now I am fortunate enough to work with people at AndyMark who are on Team Indiana, and I love what they are doing. Because I realize more, and remember more, that FIRST is about so much more than the students doing everything. It's about Inspiration. Honestly, I feel like the Ri3D debate boils back down to what is inspiration? Is it the engineer designed, student or engineer built robot? Or is it the students did everything and it barely moves robot? Ultimately I feel like it is up to the mentors and the students on each team to work together and find the balance of what is right for their team, and what inspires these students to pursue STEM. I know my team in HS was very engineer heavy, but the students also built the robots and worked in the pit. That team, at that time, inspired me to pursue Mechanical Engineering, and ultimately has led me to this point in my life. So in my mind, FIRST worked. And if Ri3D becomes the new engineer built robot of FIRST, then so be it, because they are still inspiring the next generation of FIRSTer.

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

I think the Ri3d and other mass-mentoring efforts are a big improvement to our experience. We rookied in Rebound Rumble, and we had no idea what we were up against. If Ri3d had started a year earlier, we would probably have realized that it took a couple dozen pounds of force to tip that 100+lb bridge. As it was, we didn't do the math ourselves and couldn't get over the hump, as we used a window motor on about a 24-inch moment arm (< 4# force at the end!). We built a defensive bot (very low gear ratio, good ball pickup and a full-court throw (though never calibrated; we mostly wanted to starve the other field of balls), so we never did get to do what we designed for. During competition, we managed to morph this into a ramp that we just "locked" in place against our frame, but we didn't get it working until our final match, when we did manage to bring balls on our side of the field and help an alliance partner with slick wheels onto the bridge for balance points. It was a great build and learning experience, but a disheartening competition experience.

For Ultimate Ascent, we did all our usual work on the first three days (not realizing that Ri3d was out there just yet). After Ri3d, we made some serious readjustments to our shooter, as ours was so much more complicated than the Ri3d design that we knew we weren't on the right track. Our design DID feature the spinning wheels to project the disks, but we still had plenty of issues that we solved ourselves (including using some FLL parts for the feeder to prevent jamming), and some plastic blocks to keep the frisbees properly engaged on the wheels, which brought our short-range shooting down to about a 98% shot (with the 2% being bad alignment). Our climber didn't look anything like the Ri3d; we went for the 30-point climb (couldn't have made it as we were a bit too large, though the technique itself was good).

For Aerial Assist, we still went at things full tilt, even knowing that there would be an Ri3d. I don't even recall what the Ri3d design was, but I do know that ours was scrapped and GREATLY simplified after a week or so. I do know that we did not have a bunch of Ri3d clones at our regional, because there weren't more than about three of any given basic design (except a kitbot with a box on top), and several were unique.

I believe that having seven (or more) independent Ri3d teams makes this an even better contribution to the FRC community, and 3946 in particular. For instance, we can now incorporate Ri3d into our strategic planning, as well as our individual robot planning. That is, we can ask questions like "How well would would we do when alllied with robots A and B against robots C, D, and E?", with A, B, C, D, and E all being different Ri3d robots. The bottom line is, we plan to continue with our full processes of brainstorming BEFORE Ri3d, but then we'll adjust not only our expectations of what we'll build, but of what our opposition may build based on the videos. As a team that has misread the actual game play for three games in a row, having seven separate Ri3d's is WONDERFUL news!

Re: Robot in 3 Days 2015
 

This is one of the things I'm excited about as well. Having watched Ri3D and Build Blitz over the last two years, I'm very excited to see what seven different teams with wildly varying objectives and resources will come up with. I know 'Snow Problem, the team I'm working with, plans to heavily focus on building something very simple, reliable, and, if the game allows it, a focus on supporting/assisting other teams. Combined with an emphasis on releasing documentation, I hope we'll be able to put our own spin on the idea of Robot in Three Days. We also hope to release more documentation in the week after the build-- stuff like building better bumpers, and painting a robot. If you have anything in particular that you'd like to see, feel free to ask over in our thread.