My wish? make the BuildBlitzs/RobotIn3Days projects go away...

[Leav]

I'm not sure how this opinion will be received by the community, but I have to get this off my chest.

I have a lot of respect for the people doing the 72 hour build marathons after kickoff: they are all experienced FIRSTers and engineers, well known and admired in the FIRST community.

However, I think that the build marathons are detracting from the creativity and challenge of the FRC competition.

• The marathons are probably going to stifle the creative process. If teams choose to watch they can easily be locked on an idea and be unable to shake it from their mind.
  Showing 5 working robots after 72 hours is going to probably cover most bases in terms of basic ideas for the 2014 season. This will rob teams of the sense of accomplishment which comes with brainstorming and deciding on your own robot.
• An obvious retort to the above point would be "just don't watch the marathons or look at their results", but we all know it will be hard to avoid. Also, there is a dillema here: these are robots built by professional FIRSTers, are you really not going to try and learn from them when you have the chance?
  

Catch 22 here:

• if you watch or look at the robots, your creative process is disrupted and you will probably lose some (if not most) of your pride in your creation.
• If you don't watch or look at robots (assuming that's even possible while still browsing CD and Facebook), you are putting yourself at a possible disadvantage when compared to other teams.

In the end, the only real solution (in my mind) is not to have these marathons exist at all, but I don't really see how that can be achieved without the marathoners themselves bowing out...

FRC is for kids, can't we keep it that way?

[Akash Rastogi]

I suggest this post be merged with this thread, which holds the same discussion and responses to it.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=122661

[MechEng83]

I struggle with this. On one hand, 90% of engineering is using ideas and designs that other have created to solve a problem. However, the other 10% is inspired designs, being creative/unique to push the design envelope.

In a commercial industry, there's production environments and research environments. Production tends toward conservative approaches - i.e. using established methods and avoiding risk because you need to get a product out the door.
But there's also research and development. This is where new ideas are tested -- where radical designs are allowed, where failure isn't always bad thing, because it increases knowledge.

What is the point of FIRST? I think it's both, but Ri3D pushes toward the former.

One thing I guess I'd add to spur discussion: would people's opinions change if someone released "FLL Robot in 24 hours"? Is there a reason the answers should be different?

[Ian Curtis]

How many teams built Ri3D hangers? I can't name a single one off the top of my head, but I suppose there were a few. While I would not be surprised if Ri3D style shooters were the most common in FRC 2013, I bet the bucket alliance had the largest percentage of hoppers and the most common hanger was either a pair of pistons or the inverted ramp camp.

Even if teams aren't coming up with novel concepts on their own, they are still stealing from the best and inventing the rest. Wholesale copying is extremely rare, and does it really matter? If the teams that are building exact replicas are inspired, who are we to say "You're being inspired all wrong?!"

[Peyton Yeung]

While I agree that the build marathons may give teams tunnel vision I don't think they should go away. The goal of FIRST is to inspire and what inspires many is success. I know my time as a student were more inspired by the great memories achieved from competition but that may be just me. I don't think one needs to reinvent the wheel every year to achieve inspiration. Otherwise we may need to get rid of COTS parts so we can be inspired by designing them ourselves.

[yash101]

Yeah. I think that there can be some changes made to the RI3D. It should be at least 3Days after kickoff (I don't know whether they get the game earlier or at the same time as us). That way, those ideas will come later, after most teams should be done/finishing brainstorming. Also, their robots are quite minimal. However, we developed a little of out linear shooter idea from what they did. We just redesigned it a bit.

[Starke]

I am glad that Leav had enough guts to start this thread. I thought about starting this same thread, but decided against it because I was afraid of the reaction. Let’s try to keep this discussion on topic and not turn into another one of those closed thread because they got too heated.

I hope that some well-respected FIRSTers like JVN, Karthik, Andy Baker, Joe J. will reply in this thread as well. These are men that are inspiring to me and would love to know their side of the story.

Background on me: I am a 12+ year member of FIRST who started as a high school student and am now a Technology Teacher that runs a FIRST Robotics team. I love FIRST and no matter what happens I am “hooked” for life. I love the program and what it does for young people.

Originally Posted by Leav

FRC is for kids, can't we keep it that way?

This is the main idea that I struggle with with Ri3D and BuildBlidz.

Q: As an educator, what is my overall goal for students?

A: I want students to come out of my classes being problem solvers. The content is important yes, but I want them to be able to use the content that I share to solve life’s issues. They will probably never encounter the exact problem that I gave them in class. However, I want them to be able to take the situations and content that I give in class to solve any problem that comes at them.


Q: Does Ri3D and BuildBlidz allow students to be problem solvers with the challenges ahead of them?

A: Maybe not. Once students see an idea that is functioning well (especially when it is built by well-respected people in FIRST), it is hard to get them out of it. Add on that there are now 5 different robots being built, they are able to “pick” the robot design that they like the best.

Engineering, by definition is, “the work of designing and creating large structures (such as roads and bridges) or new products or systems by using scientific methods” (Source). Are these builds taking the designing our of FIRST?

Q: Should we just ignore the builds?

A: See Leav’s comments on this:

Originally Posted by Leav

[*]If you don't watch or look at robots (assuming that's even possible while still browsing CD and Facebook), you are putting yourself at a possible disadvantage when compared to other teams.[/list]

Q: Are we creating problem solvers or fabricators?

A: Looking at these builds, I could see that we are creating more fabricators than problem solvers. We are showing students how to pick a part “off of the shelf” and follow instructions on how to build it. In my opinion, this does not have as much problem solving experiences as make something “from scratch.”

Q: Are fabricator skills important?

A: Absolutely. The skills of how to use tools and machines are very important. They will stay with them forever.

Q: What am I saying?

A: I am not sure. I am struggling that we may be going too extreme with “elevating the playing field” and are now “leveling the playing field.” While doing this, our students may not be learning the same problem solving skills that they used to in FIRST.

I love all of you and I would love to have your input on this internal struggle that I am having. Personally, I love these builds and I am not asking them to go away. I am just trying to analyze the situation and help my student's learning.

Matt

[seg9585]

Maybe they should have picked the last 3 days of build season (do not start until Feb 16th and have the same stop build deadline as everyone else).

Although I bet FIRST likes having the Robot in 3 Days because it unveils potential game rules flaws and workarounds that would require a rules update.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by seg9585

Maybe they should have picked the last 3 days of build season (do not start until Feb 16th and have the same stop build deadline as everyone else).

I don't understand, who would this benefit?

[Leav]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

I don't understand, who would this benefit?

Akash, what I don't understand is this: who benefits from the current model of the build marathons?

I can see rookies benefiting, but I think rookies have been doing fine since before these marathons.

And I won't shy away from saying this: AndyMark and VEX definitely stand to benefit commercially by demonstrating how to build successful robots with parts available from their stores.

Originally Posted by Starke

I want students to come out of my classes being problem solvers. The content is important yes, but I want them to be able to use the content that I share to solve life’s issues. They will probably never encounter the exact problem that I gave them in class. However, I want them to be able to take the situations and content that I give in class to solve any problem that comes at them.

Satrke, I really agree with this and I think this is mostly what has been bothering me with these builds. For me the off-season is the time to learn from other people and the build season the time to work on you own and tackle the problem as a team.

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by Leav

I can see rookies benefiting, but I think rookies have been doing fine since before these marathons.

I think I saw less rookies with just drive bases this year than I have before so I don't think rookies as a whole were all that better before Ri3D.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Leav

Akash, what I don't understand is this: who benefits from the current model of the build marathons?

I can see rookies benefiting, but I think rookies have been doing fine since before these marathons.

And I won't shy away from saying this: AndyMark and VEX definitely stand to benefit commercially by demonstrating how to build successful robots with parts available from their stores.

I don't think anyone is oblivious to the fact that this is an awesome way to market their products. I, in fact, like that this is a way to show off to teams how to use COTS parts. There are a TON of teams who don't even know about all of the COTS items available to them. Maybe I like the free market and capitalism, but I don't see anything negative about this.

As for rookies "doing fine," why is it a bad thing to want to raise the level of competition in the process of marketing a product? Should we, instead, maintain the status quo? [Edit] Also, I saw a few weak veterans do well this year due to what they learned from Ri3D. It isn't just about the rookies. Ri3D affected teams at almost each level. Rookie teams and weak veterans got ideas of how to tackle the task or gained confidence and reassurance in their own ideas, while mid-level teams had a great baseline achievement to evaluate the performance of their own robots against. [/Edit]

In the end, I don't see it as a huge deal. I pretty much stated my opinion in this post, but I will re-evaluate after this season is over.

I think of it in the sense that you can really only control what actions your own team takes. Rather than asking for the resource to go away, make a plan of how to react to the videos and incorporate all of this information into your own build process.

Past those points, feel free to discuss via PM, since I don't have much more to add to the discussion. I want to just wait and see how it all works out.

[brrian27]

These build marathons are great in my opinion.

First of all, it's obviously beneficial to rookie teams. For new teams, it's hard to go through the design process completely, and for many just making a robot is an accomplishment.

But, for more experienced teams it is still a great resource. After watching the Robot in 3 Days final video last year, we really got hit with inspiration. We incorporated some of their features of a linear shooter, but in the end made a robot that looks nothing like theirs. We took what they had made and built off of it, ending up with a completely unique product that everyone felt proud of.

[Allison K]

It would be silly if a team said "we don't look at old designs because it stifles our creativity." In an era where often times the game has an element that's similar to the past (tubes in 2011/2007, foam ball in 2012/2006, etc.) there's a plethora of examples of manipulator mechanisms (in addition to the drive trains and electrical techniques) that teams look to for design ideas. Innovation will not move as quickly if teams are continuously reinventing the wheel rather than using the intellectual property that they have at their disposal. I feel like the Ri3D/Build Blitz projects are similar in that they set a base line where teams can build from and actually encourage creativity and innovation.

Additionally, even non-rookie teams stand to benefit significantly from second hand prototyping. Are you home designing and want to know if something will work, but you don't have your shop on hand? Ask one of five teams that is more than willing to do some testing for you. Remember how excited teams got when the Ri3D team showed that accurate full field shooting was a possibility?

Finally, I think a major element of these Build Blitz type projects is understanding how to approach strategy. I've seen a number of teams that either don't value strategy or don't know how to derive a strategy, and having a number of methods to observe will help these students understand the game that happens in those first three days.

Overall I think the 72-hour build projects benefit the community.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Allison K

It would be silly if a team said "we don't look at old designs because it stifles our creativity." In an era where often times the game has an element that's similar to the past (tubes in 2011/2007, foam ball in 2012/2006, etc.) there's a plethora of examples of manipulator mechanisms (in addition to the drive trains and electrical techniques) that teams look to for design ideas. Innovation will not move as quickly if teams are continuously reinventing the wheel rather than using the intellectual property that they have at their disposal. I feel like the Ri3D/Build Blitz projects are similar in that they set a base line where teams can build from and actually encourage creativity and innovation.

This + let's be honest, was it really groundbreaking to teams that a wheel could be used to shoot something into a goal? No. But Ri3D's prototypes allowed a lot of new teams to work out the details of a shooter more quickly. Not all teams have the funds to buy things to prototype with, and rookies especially don't always have an inventory of old parts to use and work with.

Okay I'm done now lol.