Engineering slogans

[ChrisH]

Originally posted by Mike Rush
Engineering is the art of molding materials we do not entirely understand, into shapes we cannot really analyze, to withstand forces we cannot really assess, such that the public at large is unaware of the extent of our ignorance.

Anonymous

Which doesn't entirely fit with the "Stress Engineer's Motto":

When in Doubt
Make it Stout
From Something
You know About

I heard it from Bob Best, I have no clue where he got it from...

[Adam Y.]

"set screws inhale audibly"

lol He stole that from battlebots. This is quite odd but in physics class I managed to get a partially correct answer but doing to wrongs. You could say two wrongs sometimes make a right.

[Mark Hamilton]

The "set screws inhale audibly" quote has been around longer then I've been in FIRST, and far longer then Battlebots has been around. It used to be quite common for robot's to break their hubs in the middle of a match, ussually do to set screws. The robots would sit on the feild with the motors full blast and going nowhere. I haven't seen this happen in quite awhile.

[Adam Y.]

The "set screws inhale audibly" quote has been around longer then I've been in FIRST, and far longer then Battlebots has been around. It used to be quite common for robot's to break their hubs in the middle of a match, ussually do to set screws. The robots would sit on the feild with the motors full blast and going nowhere. I haven't seen this happen in quite awhile.

Yeah but robot combat is as old as first is and I've always thought the person who created it was the creator of biohazard. Of course when you've got enough people who have the same problem with set screws they probably all say that set screws suck.

[DanLevin247]

Originally posted by GregT


That said, we labled our robot front and back. We spent 90% of our time at nats broken, and 60 - 70% of that time at the top of the white devision. At NYC we left our shielding all over the field our first practice. at nats we left a chain on the field.

For OCCRA, an off season robotics league, I had a little fun with our lable maker, labling such things as "band saw" "grinder" "floor" "window" "tom" "tools" and most importantly, "robot"

[Matt Leese]

Originally posted by wysiswyg

Yeah but robot combat is as old as first is and I've always thought the person who created it was the creator of biohazard. Of course when you've got enough people who have the same problem with set screws they probably all say that set screws suck.

Actually, FIRST is a year older than any robotic combat that I've ever heard about. The FIRST Robotics Competition was started in 1992. The British version of Robot Wars was started in 1993. Battlebots didn't start until 2000 (if I remember correctly; it could've been 1999). I've heard the "set screws inhale audibly" quote for quite awhile. I think it's fairly accurate to say that Woody thought it up as opposed to stealing it from Battlebots. It also is very much in Woody's style (inhale audibly as opposed to suck). My bet is that Woody came up with it on his own.

Matt

[Stephanie]

"the persuader"
"if it doesn't fit, use the persuader. if it breaks, it needed to be fixed anyway"
"noooooo....i cut it twice and it's *still* too short!"

[rbayer]

"I can't program a limit switch if I don't have a freaking limit switch"

"It's hard to wire a robot without wire"

"Being awake for 42 hours only makes power tools more fun!"

"If that could break it, it needed fixing anyway" (after I stressed-tessed our scissor lift and snapped the main support in half).

"Software can't grind out a gearbox!"

"Just guess"

"So the weapons go through the treads, right?"

"Umm... is it supposed to only be able to turn?"

"Close enough"

[Jeff Waegelin]

"The hardest part about building the robot is figuring out what to build"

"Hmmm... it looks BETTER crooked"

"The wrong way is the right way" (in reference to previous quote)

I'll think of some more...

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally posted by rbayer
"If that could break it, it needed fixing anyway" (after I stressed-tessed our scissor lift and snapped the main support in half).

"Software can't grind out a gearbox!"

Hahahaha! Very nice

- Katie

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Matt Leese

Actually, FIRST is a year older than any robotic combat that I've ever heard about. The FIRST Robotics Competition was started in 1992. The British version of Robot Wars was started in 1993. Battlebots didn't start until 2000 (if I remember correctly; it could've been 1999). I've heard the "set screws inhale audibly" quote for quite awhile. I think it's fairly accurate to say that Woody thought it up as opposed to stealing it from Battlebots. It also is very much in Woody's style (inhale audibly as opposed to suck). My bet is that Woody came up with it on his own.

Matt

Actually, Robot Wars UK was mid 1997.

Robot Wars was conceived in 1992 by Marc Thorpe. For money he partnered with Profile Records for cash, and the first game was in the **US**, in 1994. You can read his version of the story at:
- http://www.marcthorpe.com/robot.html
However, due to a settlement with his old partners, it doesn't tell the WHOLE story...

According to the online histories (many of which are now severely edited), many people felt, Profile "stole it from him". The combatants supported Marc and boycotted Profile's events. Profile then took it to the UK in 1997, and invited US competitors to come THERE. (I actually received an invitation myself back then to make one for Profile. No way.) Everyone in the US still said "no". Profile then ran it with UK participants. Lawsuits happened both ways, to block Marc from starting a second contest, and to sue Profile for royalties. VERY messy.

Marc was driven to bankruptcy... Eventually the lawsuits were finished, and Marc moved on, but is no longer involved with Robot Wars. He FINALLY became free of all of the litigation THIS YEAR, so we may soon see more of Marc's concepts.

Here's a more complete timeline for Robot Wars, BattleBots, Robotica, Bot Bash, etc...:
- http://www.robotcombat.com/history.html
It is a FASCINATING read...

It would be nice to see the FIRST contest included, but this history is "geared" more toward the "mayhem/gladiator" variety of robotic battle.

The original FIRST game was in 1992 with Maize Craze:
- http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/abr_art1.htm

BTW... They've removed the rules for all the old games. If anyone has a URL of archives of the old FIRST games and rules, please email me directly with it. Thanks!

Bottom line: FIRST can claim actual contests before both Robot Wars and BattleBots.

Now as to FIRST history, FIRST is NOT the original "robotics contest". Woodie Flowers was working at MIT and created the MIT 2.70 "Introduction to Design" class and contest, which involved robotic battle back in the 1980's. I believe it was a 12 or 15 week class. In 1987 Michael B. Parker at MIT made MIT 6.270, "the six week answer" to the 2.70 class.
- http://web.mit.edu/6.270/www/about/history.html
MIT 2.70 evolved into other classes around 1997, while MIT 6.270 is still around. The design for the Lego Mindstorm RCX brick comes from that series of classes! Other Universities have since copied the format.

I think of FIRST as the MUCH larger "industrial version" of the 6.270 class. Automotive scale, vs LEGO scale... I'm let to believe Woodie and Dean got together and jointly conceived this contest around 1990 or so, but don't have the documentation on that just yet.

Any way you look at it though, this type of robot contest significantly predates the gladiator types.

- Keith

[Melancholy]

Not quite engineering, and not quite a slogan, but my Computer Science teacher said this on the first day of class.

"The purpose of commenting is that if you get fired, or hit by a bus, someone else can finish your program!"

[Neal Probert]

"We'll be back"

Next year.

"Today is a good day to die"

Your last event of the season and you're going all out, finally. #%#%#%#% the batteries, #%#%#%#% the motors, ahead full ramming speed!

"But I just fixed it!"

It broke again, again and again. Even after testing, but it won't work right in competition.

"I'd rather have a bot in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

I plagiarized that one

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

I'd rather have a ugly robot that worked really well, than a beautiful bot that couldn't do diddly squat. Has anybody got a beautiful bot that worked really good?

"What you see is what you get."

I've had to work with somebody else's ugly code, not a fun thing to do. If you work for me and don't produce clean, modular code easy to read with comments as required, you'll be fired.

[kmcclary]

Originally posted by Melancholy
Not quite engineering, and not quite a slogan, but my Computer Science teacher said this on the first day of class.

"The purpose of commenting is that if you get fired, or hit by a bus, someone else can finish your program!"

Actually that's not quite true... Try this version:

"The purpose of documentation is so that you know what the heck you were thinking when you are forced pick it up again a year or more later to either fix or upgrade it!"

Trust me, in industry if you aren't meticulous in your commenting, it can come back to haunt you, sometimes years later.

It's more than slightly embarrassing to be staring at your own design two years later trying to get to where your own head was at 3 AM that fateful "night before deadline" when you, cranked up on caffeine and desperately trying to get the darn thing out the door had some epiphany of insight. You can even remember thinking "Oh heck, this is really cool, non-obvious, it works, and (fateful last words) I'll just get around to documenting it sometime next week when I have "more time"...

The only thing worse is having your boss standing by your side waiting for your explanation of the design during this entire process...

SO...

"Document it like you know you're going to die next week, yet still care about it surviving."

Or, another point of view:

"Design and document it so OTHERS can understand it later, or you'll be passed over for promotion because now you're the ONLY person in the company ABLE to maintain it."

- Keith

[evulish]

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools"
- Douglas Adams

That's one of my favorite Douglas Adams quotes. And boy...does that relate to our team