Thoughts on Ri3D and BuildBlitz

[dradel]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

To overuse the word arguably...

Arguably one of the most important lessons we can teach our students is how to win.

Setting goals, working against seemingly impossible odds, not giving up after failure, working harder, working smarter, etc...

Isn't it more important to teach them how to think!!?? Winning is nice, but it shouldn't be the end all be all. Putting forth true effort, and learning something is way more important than bragging rights.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by dradel

Isn't it more important to teach them how to think!!?? Winning is nice, but it shouldn't be the end all be all. Putting forth true effort, and learning something is way more important than bragging rights.

FIRST is a competition.....not just about winning a trophy, but winning sponsorship, support from school, and the other non-robot awards associated with a competition.
Every journey is unique and teams have the right to choose which route they want to take.

Personally, I think Ri3D and Build Blitz was one of the best things that have happened in recent years.
Not only do they help teams come up with ideas, they show how teams can utilize their respective products they market and sell.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by dradel

Isn't it more important to teach them how to think!!?? Winning is nice, but it shouldn't be the end all be all. Putting forth true effort, and learning something is way more important than bragging rights.

To achieve what I said against the caliber of competition out there is impossible without thinking. A lot. I said "working smart" after all.

I'll also say that our team doesn't compete for bragging rights. We enjoy winning when it happens (as everyone should), but what we really take pleasure in at the end of everything is the transformation in each and every member of the group. Even kids that are barely involved and don't contribute much (shy, first year, not outgoing, whatever reason) get instilled with an unshakable sense of quality and hard work that often springboards them into much success in their coming seasons with us, and in the rest of their lives.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dradel

Isn't it more important to teach them how to think!!?? Winning is nice, but it shouldn't be the end all be all. Putting forth true effort, and learning something is way more important than bragging rights.

What is FIRST's mission?

Inspiration.

To me, the Ri3D type of robots are a good thing and maybe not so good of a thing. They're a good thing because they raise the floor, allowing teams to see a successful design or six in action, then copy it (and if you just copy it, you're missing out--the subtle improvements are where it's at, folks!). They allow more teams to actually be competitive at regionals, never a bad thing--anybody else remember the older days, when if you got one BLT on your alliance, your only hope was that they could play some really good defense?

That said, the not-so-good part is that some teams will just copy the designs. Anybody who's seen me answer "obvious" rules and/or design questions knows that I'm not going to give a straight answer right away, I'm going to go the long way around (often involving math) and try to teach something along the way. I'm a big fan of not giving the answer, and a big fan of teaching how to think--and NOT a big fan of having everybody just say "Do my homework for me."

So, I opt to be somewhat neutral, because of what I just outlined. I can see both sides as having valid points.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by dradel

Isn't it more important to teach them how to think!!?? Winning is nice, but it shouldn't be the end all be all. Putting forth true effort, and learning something is way more important than bragging rights.

To consistently win you need to learn how to think. Engineering is about using your resources. Buy/make analysis is a common occurrence in industry. Using prior examples is also a common occurrence.

If you want to build a bridge, you learn the techniques and the math, but you also look at past winning bridges. That's how you build a winning (I.e. not this) bridge.

Winning does not exclude learning, to requires it.

Check out my user title (right under my name), I think it's appropriate for this discussion.

[aldaeron]

Similar to cadandcookies, I stand by my pre-season post

While there was a lot of cool stuff shown on Ri3d/BuildBlitz, our team compared the final bots against the strategy discussions we had in the first 3-4 days. We decided there were a few shortcomings in the designs (as you would expect with only 3 days to conceptualize and build). We are inspired to design a robot that correct these shortcomings and is a level above and beyond what we saw.

Overall I think Ri3d/BuildBlitz added to the season in a positive way.

-matto-

[Allison K]

Change is a constant in FIRST, and due to the nature of the competition it must be. Even the changes that we now collectively agree were good have generated enormous suspicion (districts anyone?). Ten or so years ago the announcement that AndyMark.biz had been founded and would be selling COTS gearboxes triggered many of the same arguments. There was concern that COTS gearboxes would hinder creativity and that all the robots would look the same. Now a decade out from that it would appear that the general consensus is that availability of those products (and now other components from AndyMark as well as VEX and other suppliers) has overall been a value added proposition and actually promoted creativity by making more advanced mechanisms available to a larger portion of teams. I see the 72 hour robot builds an analogous event. It's a natural evolution of the community created by FIRST, and I think it's something that we will look back on and agree has had a positive effect.

[Jay O'Donnell]

I recently thought of an analogy to sum up what I believe the OP was trying to say.

Essentially teams can use Ri3D as either a way to copy designs or to use the ideas shown as inspiration. I see the teams that just copy these designs as the kids who copy other students homework in school. Do we celebrate those kids and tell them they've been inspired? No, we call that plagiarizing and cheating. The teams the use Ri3D to inspire their kids and come up with even better designs are like the students who instead of just copying answers, ask others for help with their homework so they can understand it. I think we can all agree that having teams who use Ri3D as inspiration are beneficial, but I think people aren't realizing that having teams who just copy might not be so beneficial. Just my two cents.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Essentially teams can use Ri3D as either a way to copy designs or to use the ideas shown as inspiration. I see the teams that just copy these designs as the kids who copy other students homework in school. Do we celebrate those kids and tell them they've been inspired? No, we call that plagiarizing and cheating.

Wow, that is harsh. If a history teacher was excited about STEM and scrounged up enough money to field a team out of a classroom that only had the resources to put together a sweet looking AM14U, would you tell them to go home because they just copied Andy's design and built what the (very thorough) instructional book told them to?

I don't think it is our place to tell someone they've been inspired. That is a very personal revelation. 1778 will keep working hard at the I in FIRST -- I hope everyone else does too, however they see fit.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

Wow, that is harsh. If a history teacher was excited about STEM and scrounged up enough money to field a team out of a classroom that only had the resources to put together a sweet looking AM14U, would you tell them to go home because they just copied Andy's design and built what the (very thorough) instructional book told them to?

Well obviously that's a different circumstance. If all a team is able to do is put together a kitbot then that's all they're able to do. And you're right that for some teams, that's enough inspiration. However if you look at the teams that are able to copy the complete designs of the Robots in 3 days, they obviously have the resources to build something more than a kitbot, and can build their own machine. A quote that's said often our team is "look at that robot and be able to call it yours, because you designed and built that yourself." Of course this is my opinion, I can't say that what inspires my team is the same as what inspires another.

[nicholsjj]

http://youtu.be/i1QyM9WTF18?t=1m8s This great video narrated by Morgan Freeman quotes Dean saying that he wanted to inspire high school students to embrace science and technology the way Shaquille O'Neal inspires them to bounce a ball. Well I think this is exactly what these Robot in 3 Days/ Build Blitz teams are doing. Even though JVN, Andy Baker, Dr. Joe, etc. are not not 7 feet tall and have the ability to break a backboard, they all have the knowledge and respect of the FRC community to display a robot that was designed and built in 3 days. Many students probably have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours watching these fantastic mentors in order to better themselves and their teams. Does it reduce creativity? Probably so, but I do not see the letter "C" anywhere in FIRST. I actually believe that researching as many resources as possible is a major part of engineering. Using prior knowledge and experience is a very important part of successfully completing any task IMO. I know I would have loved to see a roller claw in 2011 because I will admit that our team had no experience to pull from and we didn't start looking at CD until about week 6. Also as far as cheating goes; nowhere in the rules does it say you may not look at others designs in order to help design and build your robot.

[George1902]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Well obviously that's a different circumstance.

But it's not, Jay. It was the same argument that was presented when the kit bot was introduced. It was the same argument when teams first started collaborating to build identical robots. It was the same argument when FIRST lifted the "must be bought from Small Parts" restriction or when they allowed COTS items. It's been the same argument over and over and over.

It'd be nice if, one day, people just concentrated on how to inspire your own team and your own community. Let others decide on how to inspire theirs.

Ri3D and BuildBlitz: keep I-ing and R-ing the S and T, guys. We appreciate you.

[Thad House]

I'm very torn on the Ri3D idea. On one hand, I absolutely LOVE it that it brings teams up to higher levels and does that in a great way. The level of competition has been growing dramatically in past years. On the other hand, I felt, at least for our team, they saw them and got slightly distracted. But I hugely believe that the pro of bringing teams to a higher level greatly offsets any cons, because that is what will make FIRST even better.

Also reading through this thread, BJC's post sticks out. This game has a lower ceiling mechanically then we have had since at least 2010. Had their been 5 Ri3D's in 2013, I bet every single one of them would have been DRAMATICALLY different. This year they all had the same basic concepts, because that was really the best way to play the game. Execution might have been different, but ideas were similar. Had there been 5 Ri3D's in 2013, basic strategy would have been completely different, because there were so many different great strategies to play last years game.

I feel these Ri3D's will always be game dependent. I want to see them stay around because they help bring teams up, but I think how the higher level teams react to them will always be dependent on what the game challenge actually is and how complex it is.

[sanddrag]

I'm still undecided on it all, but I find it to be helping, and our creative process to not be very diminished. A team's work will expand to fill the time available. So, maybe we are not innovating in some areas like we used to, but we are innovating in new areas.

One of our original mechanism designs was ruled illegal by a Q/A post. We had an immediate alternate solution thanks to the JVN team. The students are now learning about a completely new mechanism they've never built before, and perhaps never would have explored otherwise. And since we don't have the exact parts JVN used, they're learning how to make a similar mechanism with different parts, and adapt it to our own robot.

[EricH]

OTOH, 1197 started to prototype a particular device from one of the Ri3D teams' ideas. That prototype didn't work out quite as well as an idea "borrowed" from another team's previous year's robot, at least with what we had in the shop to work with. But, the kids still learned a bit about what it took to handle the ball using that concept.