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Originally Posted by Nikhil Bajaj
While I somewhat agree with the sentiment that, "Hey, maybe we should encourage kids who are making these CAD drawings to learn how to do some of the math, too..." I do have some reservations about some of the ideas here.
First of all, as mentors, it is our job to encourage students to pursue these avenues. Anyone who can think logically and do multiplication and division can do gear ratio calculations. I don't know why we're making such a big deal about this, because they are pretty trivial. There's no calculus involved, and the physics typically utilized by most FRC teams to make such decisions are really simple. That's fine--that's all the math it requires. Any high school student with a geometry/trigonometry background and encouragement and support from a mentor should be able to do it. So we can just tell them that the math is easy to do for these things, and give them an idea of how to do it. Then they will think for other systems that the math may be similarly easy, and give it a shot themselves.
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If the math is so easy why do so many people not do it? I agree it is easy but I also feel it is easy to fall into the trap of it being so trivial that you assume your gut instincts are satisfactory. Just because something is easy doesn't mean it isn't still important.
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The students who are posting these things here are probably not from teams where their mentors have proclaimed an aversion to "not doing the numbers" or whatever, and probably have not been directly encouraged to "do the math first." So why be snarky or sarcastic about it? I know it is well-meaning, but it is pretty off-putting, especially for me as a fellow mentor. Instead just encourage them to "do the numbers," post up a white paper and refer people to it every so often, and that's it. I liked IKE's idea of the paper compilation, and especially that he restricted the scope to 6+WDs, so that the topic wouldn't get diluted and people could get a lot of detail out of it. You could even just give a horror story of when someone didn't use the numbers, and tell them to be careful. But there's no need for snarkiness/sarcasm, especially in a public forum.
CAD is a useful tool, and those who post their designs and work here are pretty brave to do so. I'm just glad they are learning something, and trying to learn from others in the forums. We can be snarky and off-putting in the way we respond to them in an attempt to improve their designs and methods, or we can...just tell them directly and be nice about it.
You catch more flies with honey...
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I disagree that there is no need for sarcasm. I can either be nice and try to be subtle in getting people to think through what they are doing instead of posting "me-too" cads and some of them might pick up on it or I could be sarcastic. They could join me in a laugh at the anonymous person I am making fun of and realize how stupid it is not to do some simple thinking about your design.
I see too much form over function on these boards. Last year I saw a robot that didn't move much of its first competition but gosh darn it was painted pretty! If that is supposed to be inspiring then we all must have some pretty low standards. I guess I just hold a higher opinion of people, I assume they can take some criticism and I don't have to always tell them what a wonderful job they did even if it is a complete and utter lie.
Yeah, I'll tone down the sarcasm in the future. No I will not lie to a student telling them to keep up the good work if they are doing crap work. No I will not stop asking people not to post things until they are at a point where community criticism will help make it better. (And yes, I consider a napkin drawing that point in some cases) And there is no way that I will stop criticizing people for making pretty renders of things they didn't think through.