Inspiration, Ideation & Copying

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Jim Zondag

Focus on solving the problem, not on being deliberately creative. If you effectively solve the problem, creativity is naturally leveraged as part of finding a great solution.

I have been inventing things my entire life. As an engineer, I am involved in tremendously creative endeavors on a daily basis. Despite this, I am uncertain whether I have ever had a truly original idea in my life. Most of design and engineering is recombination and optimization of prior concepts.

Originality does not really matter, Solutions matter.
A new solution IS original, even if it is entirely made of old ideas.

Exactly this. Often times I have found if you are deliberately pursuing creativity you will end up with something that is not the most effective solution.

-Brando

[MrForbes]

The best idea on our robot this year came from another part of the robot...it just took a brilliant mind to point out that it was the "obvious" solution for a different problem, too.

[wireties]

I tell the students we are not inventing the wheel but learning how the wheel works and perhaps make a little custom improvement here and there.

Our team has no ME mentors that can be here more than a couple times during the build season. We have some wonderful young EE mentors and couple grey-haired EE mentors (me included). So we have real trouble coming up with innovative mechanical solutions (programmers with screwdrivers etc). I try to thank 148 when we see them at regionals and we are loyal local-pickup VexPro customers. But I would be remiss if I did not call out and thank JVN, Aren Hill and the RoboWranglers for all of their ideas we reuse every year. Our pickup this year is like a pickup we did several years ago but it was inspired by a 148 pickup years before. And we are using the choo-choo cam this year - we were lucky enough to be on the Winnovation 2008 alliance in Colorado and were impressed with both Aren and his design.

So thanks to JVN, Aren Hill and the rest of the RoboWranglers! They are the epitome of gracious professionalism. FYI - we have some deep VxWorks (15+ years teaching for Wind River), C++ and electrical expertise if you ever need help (unlikely I know).

Kind Regards.

[bEdhEd]

Yup. I agree that most ideas are not "original" and are composed of pieces from existing ideas.

Like I've said in a thread before about 701's ballista/crossbow style launcher, I got that idea from the human launcher in the "Wipeout Zone" obstacle course on the ABC show "Wipeout," and it wasn't and idea that I came up with all on my own.

There's another reason why the I in FIRST stands for Inspiration.

[Trey178]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

The best idea on our robot this year came from another part of the robot...it just took a brilliant mind to point out that it was the "obvious" solution for a different problem, too.

I know the feeling, at least my team does. Our ball launcher this year, though not based on any Ri3D design, was inspired from our 2010 robot. IT used a 2 stage shooter to kick the soccer balls and, from what I heard, it went off like a bullet.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

"You didn't build that" - Barack Obama

You're darn wrong, I did. Or more accurately, We did. That statement takes away the effort that went into, well, anything. I don't think anyone would lay claim that a system on a robot is a 100% original idea that came out of nothing. But to say that adapting the pattern to something isn't actually building it? That's just straight up offensive.

You're right, my students didn't invent the idea of a wheel, or timing belt, or gears. But they put them together in a way that meets our particular requirements. They built a solution to our problem.

Did they come up with the choo choo linkage on our shooter? No. Did they adapt existing solutions to our problem at hand? Yes. They did. Are they taking credit for it being their original idea? Heavens no, but to insinuate that they didn't put in effort is wrong.


Now, I'm all for borrowing ideas. I'm also all for thanking those who came up with those ideas (publicly or privately) or who pointed you in that direction. But I'm never for taking away the hard work people put in.


(And this isn't even touching on the context that quote is from, which I have far more problems with)

[bEdhEd]

That Obama quote is almost always used out of context.

[Hugh Meyer]

“All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

-Hugh

[Christopher149]

Our launcher was heavily inspired by a 2008 robot we saw on Kickoff, and the roller intake by Bomb Squad's 2008 bot. Even then, the launcher took at least a week of prototyping to get working, despite seeing several videos of pneumatic catapults showing it could work.

True originality is hard to find, but even "copying" isn't always easy.

[Ivan Malik]

Originally Posted by JVN

I read a quote last fall which struck me:
Quote:
“An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements. The capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on the ability to see relationships.” -James Webb Young"

This isn't a quote from James Webb Young this is a paraphrase of a quote from Vilfredo Pareto that was misused by James Webb Young when talking about something very very far from the way you are using it. You can't take Pareto's theory about the circulation of elites, dust it off twice and apply it to innovation in general, it just doesn't work. Especially considering Pareto basically just paraphrased Marx and renamed some things. This quote, when taken in its original context makes absolutely no sense with the subject being discussed. This is a case of a secondary source cobbling together something and then a third source cobbling it again.

Edit: The irony of this is that Pareto's circulation of elites actually applies to the situation, but not in the way you are using it.

[Wayne TenBrink]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

You're darn wrong, I did. Or more accurately, We did. That statement takes away the effort that went into, well, anything. I don't think anyone would lay claim that a system on a robot is a 100% original idea that came out of nothing. But to say that adapting the pattern to something isn't actually building it? That's just straight up offensive.

You're right, my students didn't invent the idea of a wheel, or timing belt, or gears. But they put them together in a way that meets our particular requirements. They built a solution to our problem.

Did they come up with the choo choo linkage on our shooter? No. Did they adapt existing solutions to our problem at hand? Yes. They did. Are they taking credit for it being their original idea? Heavens no, but to insinuate that they didn't put in effort is wrong.


Now, I'm all for borrowing ideas. I'm also all for thanking those who came up with those ideas (publicly or privately) or who pointed you in that direction. But I'm never for taking away the hard work people put in.


(And this isn't even touching on the context that quote is from, which I have far more problems with)

That quote was meant to be sarcastic. I struggled a bit with JVN's post. To me, it seems to echo the sentiment of the President's "You didn't build that" quote - one I disagreed with.

Small, incremental, innovation based on new arrangements of old ideas does not just happen all by itself. It is something to be celebrated and fostered. There may be a continuum and a common thread between invention, innovation, and copying (and there is a time and place for each), but they are not all the same. If you come up with a new twist on something, you DID build that - at least the "twist" part. Not everybody did.

The problem solving process should result in getting the job done. Think it thru. Figure out what think is the best approach. Find a path to make it happen. Use your resources - including your experiences with other robots, machines at work, toys you had as a kid, old farm equipment, whatever. Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't have to. Do the hard work. Give credit where you can. However, when our "big picture" problem solving process starts out by looking at others' solutions, I think we are missing an important opportunity that FIRST offers. The robot is an object lesson to inspire and teach young people about how things work, not a product to be developed, manufactured and sold at a profit to deliver maximum shareholder value. There's a reason the "Kit of parts" doesn't come with detailed plans and instructions for the whole robot.

[DampRobot]

I'd like to use this excellent thread to talk about one of the ideas that most sticks with me from growing up with a professor of physics while doing engineering work for my FRC team. Here's what I understand to be true about the difference between science and engineering.

Science is primarily about being creative, and trying new things out. Sure, scientists do stand on the shoulders of giants, and try to replicate others' results, but what scientists are remembered for isn't whether or not they were really good at doing something that someone else already did. They're remembered for new results, new connections, and new theories. The job of scientists really begins and ends with creativity. Hardly anyone remembers who experimentally verified special relativity. Everyone remembers Einstein.

Engineers, on the other hand, aren't generally judged by whether or not why're being creative. They're judged by the quality of a solution they come up with, whether they designed it from scratch or copied if out of an issue of popular mechanics. Engineers are renowned for what they end up creating, and not it's novelty. Van Braun didn't design the first rocket, he "merely" managed to put together a remarkably effective solution to a very difficult problem in the Saturn V. Steve Jobs didn't invent the smartphone, or the touchscreen. He "merely" put it together really well. Engineering is about solutions, not creativity.

[Wayne TenBrink]

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Engineering is about solutions, not creativity.

Engineering is judged by the effectiveness of the solution, not its creativity. However, there are few effective solutions that don't involve the creative application of lessons learned elsewhere.

Innovators aren't just lucky because they get to stand on the shoulders of giants while everyone else is crawling in the mud. Everybody stands on those same shoulders, but innovators raise them up just a bit higher.

[jwfoss]

The saying that always comes to mind when thinking about this topic is:
"steal from the best, design the rest"

Now I don't mean literally steal, more take inspiration from and adapt to your teams strategies (and more importantly available resources). Individual mechanisms may draw heavy from other teams, but the integration of systems, material choices, and fabrication methods may differ greatly.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

"steal from the best, design the rest"

You are in good company.