Thread: Multiples 2007
View Single Post
  #6   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 24-02-2007, 14:30
Cory's Avatar
Cory Cory is offline
Registered User
AKA: Cory McBride
FRC #0254 (The Cheesy Poofs)
Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: May 2002
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: Redwood City, CA
Posts: 6,812
Cory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond reputeCory has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via AIM to Cory
Re: Multiples 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by LindsayKnowlton View Post
I'd rather have a robot that was crappy that my team made themselves, and only for themselves, rather than a robot that was made to perfection that was cloned a few times to be used by another teams.
Just because two teams have the same robot does not mean that one did all the work, and the other was handed a robot. Maybe some collaborations have worked this way, but certainly not most of them.

I can tell you from our team's experiences, both teams spent an incredible amount of time designing, discussing, and refining everything on the robot, together.

We're not collaborating to help the less fortunate, or anything like that. We're collaborating because it helps to show the students a real engineering design process, our mentors and 968's mentors have been friends for years, so it's fun for us to get to work together, and because it does allow us to build a better robot.

The workplace is extremely global right now. Your job can be based in the US, and you can have coworkers in Asia, Europe, etc. In our case, 968 is hundreds of miles away. Not very far in an absolute sense, but when it comes to having meetings, testing ideas, shipping robot parts, it's pretty far. The whole design and build process better prepares everyone on both teams for the real world, where you don't just get to sit in your little corner and do your own thing.

As to the whole making twins/triplets/etc to be competitive, sure they usually are competitive. But look at the teams who have been most competitive and done so--60, 254, 494, 968, 1114, etc. All these teams have always been competitive by themselves. All teams will continue to be competitive to the highest level, even if they were not collaborating.

I dont think collaboration would help rookies as much as some make it seem. As a rookie team, I would not want to make the same robot as a team thats many years older. It would take away from the process. It's much better for a veteran team to guide and teach a rookie team than to make identical robots. Considering that they are rookies, likely more of the design, and build of the bot would probably happen by the veteran team, which won't help the rookies if/when theyre on their own.

In short, who cares what reasons people collaborate for, so long as they aren't doing anything to break the rules? To make great robots, to further inspire the students, to work with your friends, to help disadvantaged teams, just for the challenge...whatever. As long as it's inspiring the kids, it's all good.
__________________
2001-2004: Team 100
2006-Present: Team 254