Are the three day builds affecting designs?

[nxtmonkeys]

If not for the RI3D teams, my team (we are rookies) would have had no idea what to do for this year's game. I mean, our best idea was modeling one of the bots shown in the game animation.

[Peter Matteson]

They definitely are, but I think the nature of this year's game leads to fewer dramatic departures in the mechanism desing than many previous games. I think the same convergance of design likely would have happened anyway.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

They definitely are, but I think the nature of this year's game leads to fewer dramatic departures in the mechanism desing than many previous games. I think the same convergance of design likely would have happened anyway.

I agree with this. I think the over the bumper pickup would have been a pretty common design even without the 3 day build bots, and I wasn't surprised to see some of the 3 day bots go that route. The choo choo is really the only thing I'm seeing more of than I would have expected to see without the 3 day builds.

[JohnSchneider]

One of the hardest things for mid-tier teams to do at a regional or championship, is to distinguish themselves from the pack for alliance consideration. By following a Ri3Ds robot, the team is forced to blend in with all of the other similar robots. They disadvantage themselves.

But Ri3Ds doesn't necessarily detract from the ability to engineer. Take a look at 148 this year. While in concept it is similar to "BoomDone"'s robot, the process of reengineering and iterating the design is a System Engineer's dream come true. There is no doubt that they can (and will) distinguish themselves.

Why reinvent the wheel when you can build a better one?

[Jibri Wright]

Read my signature.

[OzzyArmas]

Originally Posted by Jibri Wright

Read my signature.

Love it!

[JohnFogarty]

Suggestion #3: Invent as a last resort. Almost all of the innovations you can think of didn’t start with a clean piece of paper. Find a way to use existing things and make them better.

-Dean Kamen

Read this quote several times before making another argument against the 72 hour builds.

[Jared Russell]

I agree that you would have seen a lot of convergence due to the game challenge, but there are definitely a few design features that are more common than they would have been without Ri3D/Build Blitz.

1. El Toro style intakes

2. Motor driven arm-apults

3. Optimizing for the "Aren Hill Sweet Spot"

[Aren_Hill]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

I agree that you would have seen a lot of convergence due to the game challenge, but there are definitely a few design features that are more common than they would have been without Ri3D/Build Blitz.

1. El Toro style intakes

2. Motor driven arm-apults

3. Optimizing for the "Aren Hill Sweet Spot"

Little known fact, I invented parabolas.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill

Little known fact, I invented parabolas.

And choo choo linkages!

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill

Little known fact, I invented parabolas.

To 7th graders everywhere: #blamearen

[Anupam Goli]

I can't speak for other teams' seasons, but even though our robot looks very similar to a build blitz robot, we actually did all of our proof-of-concept and prototyping independently. We did look at the Ri3D and build blitz for proof of concept, but we put all of our ideas to the test and wound up going with the ones we found were most effective and efficient to build. We did turn to build blitz for inspiration on our launching mechanism, but that may be the only thing we outright designed based off of the 3 day projects.

[chrisfl]

I am the lead student designer for my team and I modelled our shooter off of a 2008 design and our catapult looks nothing like what we modelled it off of. In the Suffield Shakedown almost every robot looked like twins. The few that stood out had huge targets on their backs. My team was able to create mostly a great design that in no way was like the RI3D robots. I believe the RI3D is a mockery of FIRST and ruins the original intentions of the FIRST program. RI3D makes students believe that they can just copy designs and do little thinking. RI3D really shouldn't make videos showing, in detail, how every function works so the teams that do copy have some kind of figuring out to do.

[scaryone]

Too many clones = loss of innovation

[cadandcookies]

Did they influence robot designs? Definitely.

The jury's still out on whether this is a good thing or not.

Personally, I think saying it makes "a mockery of FIRST" is a very strong and combative statement.

I'll be interested more in discussing this after the season is over.