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

[BrendanB]

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.

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.

Agreed. This plus all of the items that teams post on Chief Delphi that get used by other teams. The skid plates in 2012, Spectrum's two wheeled versa planetary & banebots shooter, and the passive angled hangers took off after a few teams posted their prototypes and were some of the most popular mechanisms in 2013.

To say that the three day robot challenges are stifling innovation is crazy. Team's have a big enough problem already with tunnel vision where they pick a robot concept, vote, and use it through the off-season even when it doesn't work.

Team's are in FRC for various reasons, if your team is in it to be innovative and foster creativity go right ahead this is good! If you are trying to field a competitive robot every year, Ri3D is there to help you cross the bump to field a competitive robot on a small scale. I love this.

[xForceDee]

I'll offer my two cents as a former member of young team. Keep in mind as a prelude that I have only known of FIRST's existence for 2 years. This will be a hindrance on my overall experience with the program, but it will also allow me to offer perspective as a part of a rookie team.

At the start of the 2012 season (my team's rookie year), none of our members or mentors had any FIRST experience whatsoever. Our shop consisted of a table saw, band saw, drill press, lathe and some hand tools. I say this to show we had plenty of tools to build a quality robot. We attempted to construct a design that could shoot and manipulate the bridge. Neither of these mechanisms ended up working by competition. So we went through the games with a chunk of metal on a drive train that was less than perfect to say the least. As a part of the drive team, I would have to tell our alliance partners that all we could do was move and get out of the way and maybe help go for a double balance if one of them could lower the bridge. We could not play defense that year because of the stupid bump, and we couldn't help offensively either. Basically, we would drive to the corner and wait for the match to end most of the time. Needless to say, we ended up 58th in the competition. It was still cool to see all the robots, but the competing itself was far less than enjoyable.

Fast forward to the 2013 season. We all have 1 year of experience under our belt and I came across ri3d. We watched them build a strong shooter design and we mimicked it with success. At competition, we could accurately score in the two point goal anywhere from 8 to 16 times in a match. Furthermore, we also added some plywood to block disks. This time, when asked what could do by alliance partners, we had something to say. Competition was substantially more fun. We were seeded 19th (up nearly 40 slots!) and got picked by the number 1 alliance as their 3rd pick.

So what does this mean? Well, the point could be made that we would have had this success simply due to the year of experience. However, the fact that we were still crunched for time (finishing the building on bag day) suggests that without the immediate inspiration, we could not have finished in time. So my point is this, ri3d helped us build a better robot which in turn, made competition more fun. This enjoyment is what will drive students to pursue science and engineering. For this reason I think ri3d is a great thing. Obviously, FIRST was a popular and fun for lots of people before ri3d, but I think a fair point can be made that the project has made the experience better for more teams.

I want to say that I don't think those of you with lots of experience are wrong in what you have said, in fact I hold your thoughts with incredibly high regard. However, I fear sometimes as time increases between the present and when someone started, some sight of just how hard it can be to field a functioning robot for a young team is lost.

[Ryan Dognaux]

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.

Everyone benefits. You get to see some ideas that others are trying out that maybe you had dismissed or do not have the resources to try out (only so many hours in the day right?)

How is this different from teams referencing past robots from previous seasons and gaining inspiration for their current robot? Let's be honest, very few teams are re-inventing the wheel here. We're all developing something from another idea, another concept, it's (almost) all been done before by someone. Instead of segregating everyone into their own team silo's, technology now allows our community to collaborate and share ideas throughout our teams' design processes - in real time. I love how this is changing the build season and can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

[Phalanx]

Originally Posted by xForceDee

I want to clarify that I don't think those of you with lots of experience are wrong, in fact I hold your thoughts with regard above all else, but I fear sometimes you lose sight of just how hard it can be to field a functioning robot for teams with little experience.

Let me share a little about how we experienced Mentors know exactly how hard it is to build something with little experience...

Roll the clock back to 2003 to MY rookie year. We didn't have predesigned and prefrabricated kitbots. We didn't have AndyMark, nor Vexpro to order gearboxes from. We needed to do all of that ourselves still within 6 weeks. So we do understand just how hard it is. I think that having these premade frames, gearboxes and such allow us to focus on the creativity in meeting the challenge and less on the fabrication of components. So yes we do know and do understand just how hard it is.


Now back to the thread itself. I find that these RI3D challenges do take away from each teams individual experience in meeting the challenge.
I saw a great number of "copycat" machines last season. Where's the creativity and thinking outside the box in that?

[Chris is me]

To be perfectly honest, the only teams that built exact copies of the RI3D shooter (as in, linear shooter with 2 cims and 2 pneumatic wheels) were teams that definitely would not have been able to come up with their own workable solution. Every other team I saw that was inspired by it used elements of the design and then prototyped on their own, changing it when they felt they could make improvements to it.

No one gets this outraged when teams in 2012 copy ideas from 2006, or when teams in 2011 copy ideas from 2007. Is RI3D really different?

You guys talk about "stifling the creative process", but all these "creative" robots you saw low resource teams building instead of RI3D variants didn't work. Teams that know how to pull off creative still did it anyway, and teams that didn't had a starting point to work off of. I really just don't understand how anyone could think RI3D made 2013 worse.

The thing that also gets me is that people are commenting about how *other* teams copied the RI3D. How exactly does anyone have the authority to say how much of the experience was taken away from these teams? We say "live and let live" when it comes to mentor involvement, but when it's RI3D stuff suddenly we're all experts on how other teams run...

[Joe Ross]

Dean Kamen, 2006 Kickoff Speech:

So, in order for FIRST to work, we had to go find the super stars of science and technology. They are out there, they’ve created the life we’ve take for granted. But we had to collect them and figure out how to put them in front of kids in an interactive way that is friendly and appealing and accessible like sports.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=41564

Most teams do not have access to a Joe Johnson, or a Mark Koors, or a Paul Copioli. I think this perfectly fulfills Dean's vision of putting the superstars out to a much wider audience in an interactive way that is friendly and appealing and accessible like sports.

How many times have you heard someone say "there isn't enough time to do CAD in a 6 week build season"?. I'm pretty sure JVN is going to do CAD in a 3 day build season. How about, "I can't build X without a CNC"? Dan Richardson did.

[AdamHeard]

We picked a team at our first regional that was a Ri3d, but with a better pneumatic hanger.

These kids were a new team, they weren't good last year, but they were STOKED to be scoring this season.

Ri3d and others might be distracting to midlevel teams (Top teams certainly will value the data provided, and objectively integrate it with their own testing and ideas to achieve a better product), but to the really struggling teams (especially without mentors) they are incredibly helpful. I said this elsewhere, but it's naive of us to assume that all teams should follow the ideal design process. For some, it's copy or nothing. Ideally, after having a fun season, they are motivated to learn and grow and move up. Certainly they are more likely to do this after doing a ri3d than a kitbot with nothing else.

The benefit to these teams is huge, you're talking about kids who possibly would have hated the program instead having a fun and inspirational season. The downside of some teams being distracted by designs that they can't help but copy is negligible in comparison.

Also, as this programs grows and hits the scale we're all dreaming of, more and more things like this are going to happen. It's unavoidable, and should be embraced as part of the future.

[ttakashima]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

I saw a great number of "copycat" machines last season. Where's the creativity and thinking outside the box in that?

Yes you may have seen allot of copy cats, but were they all identical replicas? No... The Ri3D design was one of a few that I could think of to throw a Frisbee with a stable flight path, or load effectively from the feeder stations. I know my team used some design concepts in our design but we made changes unique to us and only us. I don't see Ri3D style marathons as bad for the FRC community, I see it as an improvement of overall game play.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Teams that know how to pull off creative still did it anyway, and teams that didn't had a starting point to work off of. I really just don't understand how anyone could think RI3D made 2013 worse.

I agree with this.

[XaulZan11]

As a fan of FIRST who just wants to watch matches, see which strategies and robots win, I'm super excited to get to see finished robots in just a handful of days. As someone who has to work with students on my team, it does bring some additional challenges. While I may have enough experience and confidence (or stupidity) to deviate from these legendary FIRST mentors' strategies and designs, I think that is pretty hard for a 16 year old high school student to do. As Matt Stark mentioned, I'd prefer to let students think for themselves for a little bit first before getting too much tunnel vision. Last night, a student jokingly asked me if we should even meet during the first three days of buildseason.

Last year, the original Ri3D built a robot that would have been competitive at every regional and may have won a couple events, but probably wouldn't have faired too well at the championship (tall cyclers usually had trouble getting the nod over short cyclers unless they had a secondary feature). One of my concerns is, what if one of these five robots stumble on 'the design'. For example, the minibot ramp in 2011, 469's 2010 ball return, 1114's 2008 puncher claw, 67's 2012 utility arm (even if a team doesn't copy the arm, I'm sure they would build a wide robot). I prefer not to watch events (let alone the championship) where the winner is who could implement the same design better. Given the experience and talent of those building the robots and the competitive environment, I wouldn't be shocked if one of them built the dominate design of that year.

One possible compromise that I would prefer (but may not be best for all those involved) would be to still build a robot in 3 days, but not share anything until a week or so into build season. How cool would it be if each team created a professional quality hour documentary on their three days and then we had a unveiling week with one team showing their video a day. We all loved 148's unveiling videos, but what if it was an hour long and featured interviews that detailed their design thoughts and process? Teams would still have time to think for themselves, while these robots built in three days could still provide significant help for those inexperienced teams that are behind and really need the help. Plus, the documentaries would probably be more inspiring and cool than some youtube clips. The videos probably would be one of the first things I'd show to a potential mentor.

While there are certainly some valid concerns and downsides to these completed robots shortly after buildseason, I do think the benefit outweighs the negative.

[PayneTrain]

Most things in life are "what you make of it", and I don't see these projects being taken on by the community as something you can spin to be a holistically negative endeavor when it comes to developing the program locally (the teams) and globally (the events).

Unfortunately I can't call up JVN and ask him his opinion on butterfly/nonadrive vs. octocanum/jumpdrive vs. standard six wheel, etc., but then again, neither can essentially any other of the nearly 2800 teams in FRC. I know these boards are populated by people who either have incredible FRC experience, are intelligent professional engineering resources for FRC, or both. How many of the nearly 2800 teams can say that? How many of the defunct or disbanded teams could have said that? I don't think it's a stretch to say that having a wealth of human resources on an FRC team is uncommon.

How are these projects any different than me reading a presentation on 33's 8 wheel drive or poking around through someone's STEP file or referencing 610's kickoff process to build one for a team I'm on? This community has grown through intelligent, experienced people freely sharing their ideas with the community as a whole, and other intelligent, experienced people using them as a jumping-off point to improve upon the original idea.

The fascinating thing about Ri3D last year was that not only did they put together an incredibly competitive concept in a short amount of time, but they gave teams the opportunity to use what these experienced FIRSTers knowledge to use however they want. Believe it or not, not every team in the world is or should be exactly like yours, and that's for better or worse. Some teams are 6 passionate rookie kids and a teacher way over his head. Others are a legion of 80 kids, a dozen literal rocket scientists mentoring, and years of experience and discipline that mirror a real small engineering firm. Ri3D can properly serve those teams and anyone in the middle of the spectrum. Some teams don't have the bandwidth or experience to know how to prototype or design yet. Some teams like to check out the competition down the road as a barometer.

I don't know how having 5 possibly radically different designs might affect competition this year, but last year you saw some Ri3D "clones" (that couldn't be true clones because Ri3D wouldn't have passed an FRC inspection), some teams use it as a "jumping-off point" like any other resource, or some teams not seemingly incorporate its influence at all. To me, Ri3D is just a step above the bucket hopper, the hooded shooter, the roller claw, the soccer ball roller, the Lunacy "vomit mode", the Overdrive "hurdling"... you get it.

Ri3D is something that improved the community at the expense of no one but the people who paid money and lost sleep time to make it happen, and for that I'm grateful.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Starke

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.”

How do you host a (very valuable) library of robot CAD that teams can reference while also saying that students shouldn't have access to Ri3D or the BlitzBuild? Your signature even says: "Your one stop shop for robot design ideas and solutions!", but the above post seems to indicate you think it is bad for FIRST to have students see other people's design ideas and solutions?

[mrnoble]

I am now in year 10 as a coach, and year 13 as a teacher. My approach to robotics has evolved along with my teaching techniques, and I believe both have evolved for the betterment of my students. I know that both my classes and team 1339 are producing much better quality work (and better-prepared young adults) than they used to. The following are my current thoughts on the subject of this thread.

1) Experientially, I have found that students are much more prone to avoiding research, rather than pursuing it. I actively encourage mine to make a habit of looking for existing solutions to problems concurrent to brainstorming. I knew students who, when presented with Ri3D last year, simply didn't take the time to watch the process, and in so doing missed out on obvious solutions to problems they were having with their robot, much to their ongoing frustration and later regret.

2) While 1339 ate up Ri3D last year, we did not directly implement any of their robot's elements, other than the in-line shooter, which was in the works anyway and used very different parts throughout. We also pursued a pure climber until it became apparent it would not get us where we wanted to be.

3) I observed only one robot at the Colorado Regional that appeared to be influenced by Ri3D. It was still significantly different in materials and design; more like Samsung to an iPhone, perhaps.

4) I did, however, observe that rookie teams and historically weaker teams came to competition with fully functional robots. The several people I asked told me that Ri3D was inspirational, because it showed them that the task of launching frisbees was not impossible.

To conclude, I just don't think that fears about FRC turning into an assembly line of clones are realistic, as evident in both the actual robots in competition last year, and in my (obviously subjective) observations of high-school behavior and thinking.

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

How do you host a (very valuable) library of robot CAD that teams can reference while also saying that students shouldn't have access to Ri3D or the BlitzBuild? Your signature even says: "Your one stop shop for robot design ideas and solutions!", but the above post seems to indicate you think it is bad for FIRST to have students see other people's design ideas and solutions?

There's probably enough distiniction to allow Matt some leeway here. I see a big difference between adapting from the past to solve a new problem, and having someone tell you how to solve the current problem.

Edit: Interesting to note that the kickoff broadcast of 2011 kept the GDC's minibot designs in a black box. It would make sense that they would not present both the problem and the solution in the same kick-off broadcast.

[Steven Smith]

Since I got involved in April 2013 as a mentor, I’ve been drinking from a fire hose, and I acutely feel the overwhelming nature of “trying to catch up”. Fortunately, our team has a few existing mentors with a longer history in FRC, and I’ve found troves of information in various team websites, Chief Delphi threads, etc. I’d like to say THANK YOU to all of you that contribute this content. Know that it is being read and appreciated by us newbies. I thought I’d comment on this thread, as I have worked with other programs that “got it wrong” and I wanted to encourage you all by pointing out that my fresh set of eyes still sees FRC as “getting it right.”

Maturing Programs
Assuming people enter FRC at a constant level, and the level of robot sophistication grows each year, the gap between a rookie and an “average competitive robot” will continue to grow. I see a few ways to address this.
• Design the rules or game to handicap the top end
• Find ways to accelerate the learning curve of the bottom end
• De-emphasize the competitive side of it (everyone gets a trophy mentality)

If you implement option #1 poorly, top tier teams will feel stifled, get bored, and eventually leave. These established teams are the bedrock that the FRC community is built on, and they not only build great robots, they are active in their communities, support rookie teams, etc.

As an aside, I was a part of Formula Hybrid racing competition in college. In 2009, the program organizers attempted to level the playing field without prior notification to anyone before championship. Imagine showing up to FRC regionals after build season, and finding the inspectors were allowing robots up to 200lbs, just to allow more teams to compete. The organizers even tried to rewrite the scoring metrics mid-competition to provide more points for fuel economy, because they didn’t like that our fuel-inefficient vehicle was poised to win. Ultimately, we did win easily after protesting the rule re-write, but it was a pretty bitter experience for a team of 30 students who essentially did a cost-benefit analysis, and emphasized “race car” over “hybrid”. I’d rather be a part of a program that constantly brings rookies up, than artificially holds the level of competition down. For any that are curious, this was Texas A&M in 2009.

FRC addresses these issues in a much better way. The nature of the 6 week competition and new challenge each year already limits the innovation (via time constraints) that can be applied specifically to that challenge, but it does so in a fair and fun way. It still allows year-long innovation, but at a gamble that it might not directly apply next year, and with the stipulation that it must be freely shared. The resources in the community, the increasing availability of COTS solutions, and the emphasis within the community of helping rookies address point #2. And finally, I think the myriad of non-robot, rookie, and regional awards are great and address #3, as they are highly valued and are many are less affected by the increasing robot sophistication. They give young teams an easier way to “win”, without devaluing the importance and goal of winning world championships in robot competition.

I believe that Ri3D and BuildBlitz will fix #2 for young teams that want to watch them, and potentially make it worse for teams that don’t. I think this is the primary source of discord. Some rookie teams see it as a way for them to be competitive faster. Other established teams that have remained marginally competitive, while allowing the design/build/strategy to be formulated entirely by the students with few outside resources, might see this as accelerating the maturity of the “average robot”. This may threaten their ability to continue on in the manner they like (and the manner that might be working for them and their students), while still remaining competitive.

Impact on Students
I feel the arguments both for and against allowing the FRC competition to mature come from differing opinions on what is most inspirational/educational for the students. Some argue that a higher profile competition, featuring well-built and visually impressive robots will inspire students and the public more readily... as student teams think "wow, I was a part of building something this impressive, regardless of how much external help I got". Others argue that regardless of the final product, student teams will be more inspired by thinking "I designed and built this robot all by myself... even though it did not seem to be competitive, I'm proud I accomplished it alone." This is complicated by the fact that it might vary for different groups, and there really isn’t a “right answer”.

I think it is important to recognize the maturing competition for what it is, and accept it as a natural progression instead of fighting it. Some of the initial design and creativity might come externally, and your ability to create parts better than COTS solutions in 2002 may no longer provide the edge it once did. However, there are still ways for your team to innovate and differentiate themselves from the other 3000 teams that watched the same video. If the competition starts to get stale, the game designers can always just “break the mold”, by altering the game enough that it makes previous strategies or COTS parts less applicable, and forces a bit of a knowledge reset for both new and experienced teams. Or perhaps, more awards are created that emphasize engineering creativity, with points docked for designs that are copied with little iteration. Ri3D and BuildBlitz might change FRC in the short-term, but I don’t see them as damaging it in the long term.

Finally, everyone is making great points, and I agree it is important to constantly think about how changes in the nature of FRC impact what we are trying to achieve with our students. However, I think framing the discussion in the terms of “how do I continue to emphasize the importance of original design with my students, despite the abundance of resources available at kickoff” vs. “how do I stop the proliferation of these resources”, would help a lot.

I too am conflicted, as I see these resources as being very helpful to get me up to speed more quickly, and potentially give our newer team a taste of early success. However, we also have to walk a line to make sure enough is being contributed by the students that they feel proud that it is “their robot” and “their design”, and not simply a copy of someone else’s design. For this year, I think that regardless of the source, our students will be thrilled to field a competitive robot that their hands were touching for 6 weeks, and that is driven by two of them. Maybe I’m wrong, and next year we’ll have to better manage the incoming information so the students are more bought in, but for this year, I’m pretty psyched to have so much information available in the first three days.

Thanks!
Steven

[billylo]

Great discussion here... A few additional thoughts:

Nothing is perfect. The key question I ask myself is: does R3iD/Buildbitzs help inspire students to like STEM from a big picture perspective?

My thought process is as follows:

1. For new teams, the benefit is clear. They can enjoy the fun of being in the competition sooner and contribute to their alliance partners more and learn more in the process.

2. For teams with a few years of experience, their job will be harder than last year because competition level will be raised and they will need to think more to "stand out from the crowd" and come up with a more capable/effective design. But I have no doubts that these teams will adapt and find a new way to do just that. Case in point: the games are getting harder every year, but teams manage to overcome new challenges.

3. For veterans teams, I see this is as a good thing. Competitions will be more fun with stronger participation level overall. Their job will be harder too as they will no longer be able to dominate a match easily. More strategic thinking, need to be more versatile and better scouting, driving and in game adjustments. All fun things for veteran teams to enjoy.

Competition is a powerful motivator for growth. Our team, 610, have our share of intense battles over the years... :-) The net result? Our students have learned to come up with better solutions, persevere through tough times and most importantly develop a stronger passion for STEM.