Inspiration, Ideation & Copying

[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.

[ElvisMom]

From a different perspective -

Over the weekend I watched a student struggle to set up a homework problem from his trig class; he just couldn't figure it out. He went back and re-read the problem and all of sudden said "Wait, we did a problem just like this in physics!" and started erasing. After that he was done with his homework very quickly and headed off to the Bot Shop.

Love it when that happens!