Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Karthik
I'll do the usual Canadian thing and say a bit of both?
Considering the following situation. A young student comes on these forums and says "We're planning on direct driving the Fisher Price gearbox to a 5 foot arm, will this be able to lift a tetra?".
The "teaching one to fish" answer would be, "Here are the FP motor specs, and here are the appropriate equations, you should be able to answer your question from here". Now here's my problem with that answer. Say the student can't navigate their way through the equations. Even worse, say they do it incorrectly. There's a very good chance the team will now show up at a competition with a non function arms. How inspiring is that?
|
You give them the right stuff, and then you check the answers. Or have another student check the answers. I'd worry for any team that didn't check the math. At that point, if they don't understand, then you walk them through it step by step.
The problem is that these days the questions don't prompt learning. Asking "Will it do this" is different from asking "How can I tell if it will do this," which prompts knowledge rather than answers. The wrong questions prompt the wrong answers and don't encourage self-sufficiency. Like Woody said, it isn't about the robots, it's about the learning.
Sam