Quote:
Originally Posted by davidthefat
 Now really is that true? I mean if a programmer has any idea what he is doing, he can get the drive working just by looking at the API... I think new programmers don't look at APIs but more towards step by step applications of it like a tutorial...
Actually I believe you, there is this one "programmer" that has no idea what he is doing, and all he knows is if statements... Doesnt even know what a variable is really... |
Well there is the simple matter that with most rookie teams I have seen and is still true for our second year team, its that the teams are still fairly small. It doesn't surprise me that there is little interest in programming when you only have 15 people on a team. From our area, they are mostly interested in the actual mechanical stuff, which is perfectly fine.
We do have a couple this year that were interested in programming, but only when it was at the school meetings and only while you were standing over their shoulder. :-) They had no motivation to look at it on their own time even with the links and training presentations provided to them. The problem is that it is very difficult to give the necessary training in the programming when you only have a 6 week build season. There's just not enough time to be training and doing at the same time with small teams, unless the students are self-motivating and interested. (I do look forward to one of these mythical students that the people recommending this challenge have, it'll make my workload easier that's for sure.)
I think FIRST recognizes this which is why they went with the WPI libraries. The WPI libraries have been life savers in that they have let us attempt some cool things we wouldn't have the ability to do otherwise. (now if they could just get some good documentation and a decent "canned" example on every library function it would be perfect) And even with all these programming helpers, there is still half the teams at the regionals I have attended that are lucky to have a working robot. Remember that not all mentors are engineers or programming professionals, they are teachers and parents that might not have experienced this stuff before.
So unless you are talking about having some heavily canned autonomous modes that can be mixed and matched, I just don't see how FIRST could go with this as an entire game's goals. That is of course if they want to continue to let new teams play that don't have vast resources. Now if the teams that signed up are just setting challenges for themselves because they already have got the basics zipped up, well then that's a good thing and I look forward to what they come up with.
I am one that is in favor of raising the less capable up instead of bringing the high flyers down, but it has to be done in fairly small steps. Like some Star Trek Prime Directive, we can't give pre-industrial age men nuclear propulsion and expect them to know how to take advantage of it. Not without the education that goes with it. I really do think FIRST could do with a "varsity" and "junior varsity" level. And I feel that the level should be based on the resources a team has, the size of the team, and the mentor skills available to that team, but I don't know how you would split the teams up correctly.