Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber
You're darn wrong, I did. Or more accurately, We did. That statement takes away the effort that went into, well, anything. I don't think anyone would lay claim that a system on a robot is a 100% original idea that came out of nothing. But to say that adapting the pattern to something isn't actually building it? That's just straight up offensive.
You're right, my students didn't invent the idea of a wheel, or timing belt, or gears. But they put them together in a way that meets our particular requirements. They built a solution to our problem.
Did they come up with the choo choo linkage on our shooter? No. Did they adapt existing solutions to our problem at hand? Yes. They did. Are they taking credit for it being their original idea? Heavens no, but to insinuate that they didn't put in effort is wrong.
Now, I'm all for borrowing ideas. I'm also all for thanking those who came up with those ideas (publicly or privately) or who pointed you in that direction. But I'm never for taking away the hard work people put in.
(And this isn't even touching on the context that quote is from, which I have far more problems with)
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That quote was meant to be sarcastic. I struggled a bit with JVN's post. To me, it seems to echo the sentiment of the President's "You didn't build that" quote - one I disagreed with.
Small, incremental, innovation based on new arrangements of old ideas does not just happen all by itself. It is something to be celebrated and fostered. There may be a continuum and a common thread between invention, innovation, and copying (and there is a time and place for each), but they are not all the same. If you come up with a new twist on something, you DID build that - at least the "twist" part. Not everybody did.
The problem solving process should result in getting the job done. Think it thru. Figure out what think is the best approach. Find a path to make it happen. Use your resources - including your experiences with other robots, machines at work, toys you had as a kid, old farm equipment, whatever. Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't have to. Do the hard work. Give credit where you can. However, when our "big picture" problem solving process starts out by looking at others' solutions, I think we are missing an important opportunity that FIRST offers. The robot is an object lesson to inspire and teach young people about how things work, not a product to be developed, manufactured and sold at a profit to deliver maximum shareholder value. There's a reason the "Kit of parts" doesn't come with detailed plans and instructions for the whole robot.