Innovations

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Guys, I don't think it matters who came up with something first. Xerox came up with the mouse. Apple made the mouse into a game-changer. Microsoft made the Kinect. A bunch of hackers who were almost sued by Microsoft made the Kinect into a game changer (ironic isn't it?).

118's implementation of coaxial swerve was a game changer because of their promotion of it and its continued use. It obviously wasn't a game changer for 217 if they didn't use it after a couple of iterations.

148's implementation of sheet metal gears was publicized as being a game changer for their new drive train as well as part of the core mechanism for their 2011 bot. Who was the team in 2006 that did plate metal gears? Do they still do them and how did it revolutionize a system on their bot?

The WCD guys have found obvious success in the WCD since they don't use anything but WCD. They made WCD into a game changer, regardless of 'who did it first'.

Who did do that first? Do they still do it? Does the fact that they did it first matter? This isn't the commercial market where the first to do something can patent it and demand royalties from all of the future users, so I don't think it matters a single bit.

Bragging rights? Giving credit where credit is due? Yes the teams that popularized it deserve credit but the originators should also be acknowledged.

[Peter Matteson]

This idea of innovation came up at work today discussing creative solutions to problems. This reminded me of something my team developed out of necessity and why Smokey Yunick is my hero. Since most people here on CD never knew about this I thought I'd bring up an innovation we developed a few years back.

Way back in 2004 we used vacuum actuation by creating a vacuum pump from a pnuematic cylinder with some check valves and globe motor with a crank on it. The vacuum was used to actuate the systems that would otherwise be pnuematic because we needed the vacuum for our design. Having one system that did both cut significant weight from our design. Also vacuum was explicitly allowed for the first time that year and there are not any rules written governing vacuum the way pnuematics are.

Using vacuum also allowed us to use the frame of the robot as an accumulator.

This has been legal every year since, but we haven't used it because our designs haven't needed vacuum.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Bragging rights? Giving credit where credit is due? Yes the teams that popularized it deserve credit but the originators should also be acknowledged.

Meh, I'd let the original teams speak for themselves then if it matters much. As far as I know, 1885 was the first team to use the camera as a visual radar for the drivers using custom-wrapped code from the cRIO in 2009 and a Java display for the driver. We were also the 'first' (I think 357 did it too) to use 4 independently actuated pneumatic linkage modules on the drive train in 2009. But neither fact matters; they were niche ideas meant for that game. Actually, given our last-place OPR at championships in 2009 I dunno that they're facts I'd advertise that we were firsts of, heh.

As for another innovation there's the multi-threaded approach to robot programming (inputs, state processing, and outputs all on separate threads). I don't think we were the first in 2006 since iirc we learned it from 116. Yet in 2008 I talked to several sensor-heavy teams at championships who also did it that way. When did that start? Was it just a natural part of the IFI controller?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Meh, I'd let the original teams speak for themselves then if it matters much. As far as I know, 1885 was the first team to use the camera as a visual radar for the drivers using custom-wrapped code from the cRIO in 2009 and a Java display for the driver. We were also the 'first' (I think 357 did it too) to use 4 independently actuated pneumatic linkage modules on the drive train in 2009. But neither fact matters; they were niche ideas meant for that game. Actually, given our last-place OPR at championships in 2009 I dunno that they're facts I'd advertise that we were firsts of, heh.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm mostly commenting on a process rather than your particular statements.

By your own admissions these were not successful innovations and there is really no reason to celebrate unsuccessful innovations. There is still much value in them in that you can always learn from failures (why did the linkage modules fail? What was beneficial of the camera feedback? etc.). These questions might help move forward and turn them into something worth celebrating.