Thoughts on Ri3D and BuildBlitz

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by AquaMorph

Looking at the robots for ideas and proof of concept is great but having the CAD files and being able to assemble the robot like it is a kit is too far in my opinion.

There is nothing wrong with copying to learn. Painters do this all the time. Picasso spent years practicing painting by copying, this developed his talent to create paintings in his blue and rose period. This lead to his genius creation of cubism. Those years of study by copying his influences gave him the knowledge, skill, inspiration and creativity to create his brilliant cubism paintings. to quote (or paraphrase) a Macklemoore song "the greats were great because they painted a lot."

During the 1800's and early 1900's there were many bridge collapses. During this period engineering standards were formed and applied in an effort to prevent disasters. This also created engineering societies, and standard for engineering curriculum. In an effect, standardization forced many design elements to be "copied." This led to the rise standardization of rivets, steel beams and etc. key difference between engineers and artists is that engineers cannot prioritize creativity over public safety and the desired result nor can engineers doom a project by failing to be creative enough to achieve public safety and the desired result.

I think its naive to think no one can learn or become more creative by copying. Many times when I practice CAD, I copy something I like, sometimes something amazing happens, I think of a better idea. I am sure many artists could relate, that getting paint on the canvass often opens doors to creativity. I think a key point that there are many ways to copy, but the one that teaches you the most in recreating from scratch. Tracing won't teach you to paint just as importing a step file won't teach you CAD. You still need a picture of a painting or a step file of an CAD assembly in order recreate.

I am really glad these CAD's are posted, I have been able to import their models next to my team's robot, its given me unique perspectives. This is a great experience, for my team it opened so many doors to so many possible ideas.

To go back to bridges, if an idea that is not ours is better, we have to ask ourselves: why is it? Then, can we copy it? Finally, can we make it better, can we think of something superior? Obviously copying is extremely powerful, so patents were create to create incentives by protecting the idea from copying. I use this phrase a lot, if an idea is stolen, it must be good (well sometimes no, but hey people sometimes steal the wrong thing) To be good at engineering, sometimes you have to copy a lot to become great.