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

[aldaeron]

When I heard there would be many more “televised robots” (i.e. Ri3D, Team Blitz) built this year I had the same initial concern as the OP – that FRC is for the kids and if we follow a trend of having “Professional FRC builders” that FRC may become a competition where everything is copied from the Pros. After a bit of thought I changed my mind. Most of the good points have been added already, but I wanted to share what changed my mind.

Finally, some competition!

One argument I have not yet seen is for the C in FRC - Competition. I would like to see 50 functional bots at the regional and have the ranking determined by teams could drive and score well and who had a good strategy. It would not be fun to watch the Denver Broncos play a local high school football team. Similarly it is not fun to watch a match where 3-4 robots can’t offer much activity. It is a lot of fun to see a close match where 2 points made at the buzzer determines the result.

Design Iteration

In the “real world” of engineering, design iteration is a must. Design, analyze, build, test, repeat. With a “go to” design shown online, less experienced teams could spend some time on driving and testing (which from my experience on such teams does not happen at all). While there is not time for major design iterations in 6 weeks it is a great practice to show a full design cycle including testing and proposing changes (even if they cannot be implemented before the regional).

Is Ri3D really different than years past?

I would argue that the concepts shown by RI3D last year would have come to light anyway and been utilized by most teams. I recall seeing numerous YouTube videos of collegiate Frisbee competitions with shooter designs and whitepapers, including the popular linear and curved shooter designs on CD. Ri3D was just a well documented summary of ideas mixed with years of “what works well in an FRC specific environment”. Think of it this way: without Ri3D do you really believe there would have been a big difference in the design concepts teams chose?

I share the concern that student learning and growth can be hampered by improper balance of “outside help”, be it from mentors, Ri3D, CD, etc. I would not want to see a team that bought and assembled a group of parts that were designed by a contracted professional engineering firm with no student or mentor involvement. I believe this is “doomsday scenario” the OP envisioned happening down the road. So long as the “outside help” limit themselves to 72 hours I don’t see that trend developing because there is a lot of fine tuning of the game specific mechanism that takes place and can’t be done in 72 hours. The nice thing I have noticed in FRC games is that there is always something more to learn to dig into (the hard part is restraining yourself IMO)

My biggest critique of Ri3D is that they should have gone back and explained in depth why they made certain choices (after they sleep) whether it be “this tweak has worked well for FRC because”, “you might want to experiment with disc compression vs. distance” or “a six wheeled drivetrain is better for FRC because …”. This allows everyone to learn their process and important FRC specific design concepts (more on this later).

“Doing FIRST right”

It has been noted numerous times that every participant and team in FRC is different and there is no single solution to “doing FIRST right”. From differences in resources, knowledge, experience and “how much help should mentors give”, teams have a variety of successful approaches toward achieving the FIRST mission. I have participated in or mentored a few collegiate engineering clubs and have mentored a few new engineering grads at work. On the issue of “how much do we show by example” I think it is important to note that: (remember this is my opinion on the subject)

• “Copying” or re-use of established design concepts is and old concept (For example: The concept of a differential dates back hundreds of years ). We don’t start with oval wheels every year to see if they might work better for a reason. We accept the fact that circular wheels are the way to go.
• I haven’t seen any major design concept in an FRC robot that did not come from somewhere else. It is very unlikely that you will see an identical copy of an FRC mechanism on a commercial product, since most are tailored to FRC. However, you will see the concepts (gearing, linear motion, etc) and implementations (2 stage gear reductions using spur gears, power transmission using belts, etc).
• All the mass produced COTS parts we buy come from established industries and are used for FRC the same as they are in industry (there are probably a few exceptions, let’s not be nitpicky).
• In industry we do not expect recent college grads to design spaceships from scratch on day one. We assign senior engineers to teach new hires and they show them “how to do X and why we do it that way”. Why should FRC be different? My real life example to any college seniors – How do you mount a fiber optic gyroscope such that it can withstand extreme thermal and pyrotechnic shock events without moving over a 20 year lifespan? I have never found that answer in a book. The answer is proprietary and cost thousands in the design/analysis/test/iterate cycle
• Learning by example works (it is the motto of my alma mater – Cal Poly SLO). That is why we have so many labs in science and engineering classes – to see what we read in textbooks in action. A well explained “super design” that is simply replicated by students can teach them a ton. I believe the students learn even more if they legitimately try to come up with their own solution and are then presented with a very elegant solution and the elegant pieces are explained to them in detail. Then they can really appreciate the creativity that went into the design.
• Students of all ages have a tolerance for failure. There is a point where everyone says “I am sick of failing at this and going to do something else”.

New to FRC

When I started FRC my professional background was in ultra high precision navigation systems like this . That season of FRC was a disaster because I had no idea what to expect or what worked well in FRC. I joined only a few weeks before the season and though resources like CD were plentiful I did not find them until near the end of the build season. We rebuilt the robot at the competition, barely passed inspection and were able to drive in a straight line and occasionally turn – that’s it. It was quite a disappointment and a number of kids did not return. Having a demonstrated working bot doing the current year’s game would have helped enormously to set expectations for the overall design.

Great topic and great feedback from all!

-matto-