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Re: Opinion Poll: Proliferation of Prefbricated Parts
Our culture changing mission is served only indirectly by designing and building machines to compete in a game. Building teams (and, through those teams, new generations of informed, creative problem solvers) serves our mission much more directly. I want our students to learn that FRC robot design is less about designing components yourself than it is about learning what works and what doesn't.
If there is an existing solution to your robot component problem, then your custom alternative should only be selected to go on your robot IF it is better. Having designed it yourself doesn't not make it better, but improved function, reliability, cost, or readiness might do that.
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Richard Wallace
Mentor since 2011 for FRC 3620 Average Joes (St. Joseph, Michigan)
Mentor 2002-10 for FRC 931 Perpetual Chaos (St. Louis, Missouri)
 since 2003
I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
(Cosmic Religion : With Other Opinions and Aphorisms (1931) by Albert Einstein, p. 97)
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