Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertman
I am wondering if people feel that the three day build videos are affecting the variety of designs we are seeing this year and if yes, do they feel this is a benefit or a disadvantage to the overall health of the program?
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Are they affecting designs? Absolutely. But it seems like many people are jumping to conclusions, conclusions which are overly-broad and seem to disregard the fact that FIRST is made up of a lot of different teams, each with
wildly varying design processes and resources.
On as basic level, it's easy to say that these robots are influencing designs. It's probably impossible to see one of those videos and
not say to yourself "wow, I wonder if I should just build that exact robot except better." Or, perhaps you say to yourself "wow, I should build that robot's collector and that other robot's shooter and that third robot's drivetrain."
But does that necessarily mean teams are "copying?" Yes and no. And this is why it's important to realize that teams have wildly varying levels of resources and experience. Obviously the following is also generalizing, and there are always exceptions, but I prefer to think of it in terms of different "tiers" of teams:
Low-Tier (low resources, low experience, mostly newer teams)
-These are the teams that are probably "copying" the Ri3D robots. But is that necessarily a bad thing? These are teams that lack the confidence and/or resources to build something "original," and, more often than not, end up with a drivetrain and little else. Being able to copy/draw inspiration from these Ri3D robots is the difference between driving around for 2.5 minutes and playing the game.
Mid-Tier (some mix of resources and experience)
-These are the teams this question is probably aimed at. Now, I'm sure some of these teams will replace an actual design process with a Ri3D clone, even if it's probably within their resources to put more effort into the design process. But not putting huge effort into the design process isn't necessarily a bad thing - if you save a week and some amount of money on early prototyping (by skipping part or most of that phase of the design process by copying a Ri3D robot) you now get to spend that extra week and money refining a design that you know works. And the end result is certainly a different experience, but it's equally (possibly more) valuable and is virtually guaranteed to produce a higher-quality robot.
Top-tier (lots of experience, lots of resources)
-These are teams that are going all-out on their design process no matter what happens. If they arrive at the same design that one of the Ri3D robots did, so be it. At the very least it'll be a much higher-quality finish (given, you know, an extra 6+ weeks of R&D).
At the end of the day, there are two ways to categorize the possible effects: "inspiration" (you know, the whole point of FIRST - what are students getting out of this) and "competition"
Inspiration: students are getting exposed to more designs earlier in the design process. In the case of the low-tier teams they are getting incredibly valuable experience, and in the case of the high-tier teams it doesn't matter. In the case of
some mid-tier teams you may see that these Ri3D robots reduce the students' exposure to the early (brainstorming, early prototyping) design process, but it's made up for by increased exposure to iterative design. And, of course, it has limited effect on the top-tier teams.
Competition: Top-tier is unaffected as always. Some mid-tier teams are unaffected, some mid-tier teams end up with a higher-quality robot. Low-tier teams have clones but I'd rather have 4 clones on the field than 2 clones and 2 robots that do nothing but drive around.
tldr: The benefits aren't enormous, but they're there. And I really can't find a compelling downside. It makes FIRST more competitive and, at worst, shifts the learning experience of FIRST towards iterative design.