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Originally Posted by phrontist
This is not what FIRST should be about because its far less fun/educational.
If you can't spend the time about thinking what your bot needs gearbox wise and opt to buy one instead, you shouldn't get that gearbox.
Buying is a shortcut around thinking!
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I just want to touch briefly on these points:
1. Are you sure it is less fun?
I imagine the students on team 47 had a pretty fun season this year, even though they bought commoditty DeWalt drill transmissions for their robot, rather than creating custom ones.
2. Are you sure it is less educational?
I'm fairly sure that any mentor worth half a dang can turn anything into an educationall, and inspirational experience for the students. Reverse engineering can be fun lesson to teach. Even with a stock gearbox solution, optimization still needs to be done (final sprocket-chain ratios, wheel size). Even with a stock input-output transmission, there is a SIGNIFICANT amount of engineering that goes into mounting/utilizing it on a robot in any effective fashion.
3. Why is it shameful to adapt a working product to my needs?
You said, essentially: "If I can't build it, I don't deserve to have it." Okay... interesting. Where is the line? My team can't mold rubber or plastic. Does that mean we're not allowed to use Skyway wheels? Let's say... I'm on the "arm" subteam for our design group. My kids and I calculate we need a 367:1 reduction off the Chip motor for our application. We realize, that... (hypothetically) DeWalt makes a transmission to just about fit our needs. Rather than spend $200 and countless design-hours on a custom tranny, we pick up DeWalt's solution. My kids go nuts working with me to make it dance to our tune.
What exactly is wrong with this?
My kids didn't learn anything? SURE they did.
It's not that tough to make it a positive experience for them.
My kids didn't have fun? SURE they did. You'd be surprised how satisfying it is to "engineer" a solution for a problem, even if that solution involves off the shelf parts. (My team can't cut/cast gears, does that mean we shouldn't be allowed to buy from Boston?)
4. Am I really taking a shortcut around thinking by buying something?
Heck no! It shows that I'm thinking MORE. I'm doing the smart thing. S-M-R-T, smart.
Overall I would argue:
My kids would still have a strong positive experience, even if we built our robot out of "Industrial Erector Set" and prebuilt mechanical solutions. It's still OUR robot.
It is easier on mentors this way, and allows them to spend MUCH more time mentoring. If I don't have to worry about designing a custom transmission, and working the bugs out of it, I can focus 200% on making sure the kids have fun, and get a lot out of the process (another way around this, is to do the development/debug in the fall, then redesign/tweak/rebuild during the 6 weeks, but this is another story).
Plus, mentor burnout sucks. Making things easier for mentors in this competition (while allowing them to provide the SAME positive experience) is a definite good thing. There are so many people busting their butts for this program, and for these kids... why make their lives harder?
Okay... I guess I wasn't so brief. I feel strongly on this subject.
I guess, it all comes down to mentor quality. With good mentors, anything can be good for the kids.
$.20 (10x over my limit here)
John