RI3D this year?

[Whippet]

This was relevant in 2013, and it's still relevant now.

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

If the teams that are building exact replicas are inspired, who are we to say "You're being inspired all wrong?!"

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Woolly

You know, if there were more RI3D teams, there would be a wider range of bots to copy. In fact, an increase in the number of RI3D bots would allow for low-resource, low-experience, low-budget, and/or low-originality teams being presented with a lot of ideas and having the opportunity to choose between the bots presented to them. They could even design a hybrid of several of the robots and several of the ideas presented to fit a strategy.

Intuitively, sure. However, last year's evidence doesn't really suggest the results scale like that.

In 2014, every design pursued some sort of catapult launcher. All but one used an overhead roller for accumulation. Only O-Ryon differed significantly in terms of the strategy pursued for their robot.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

There are now three thing you do not bring up on a date with an FRC member: Mentor vs Student Build, How drive teams are selected, and Ri3D opinions.

While you're at it, also don't ask your date about adult drive team coaches or eliminating the bag and tag deadline.

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

There are three things you do not bring up on a date: Religion, Politics, Exes.

There are now three thing you do not bring up on a date with an FRC member: Mentor vs Student Build, How drive teams are selected, and Ri3D opinions.

I would add Adult vs Student Coach to that as well

Edit: The guy above me is smart.

[Mark Sheridan]

I don't see how people think creativity happens in a vacuum. You need influences! its been proven many time that more influences promote creativity. There is a whole chapter on this in Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. That's the easiest source I can cite.

Pablo Picasso as a student would practice by copying masterpieces. He was learning how to paint skillfully but also deconstruct the works' artistic elements. Those influences drove him to be completely creative and make cubism masterpieces.

Even without RI3D, there are influences on your creative process, knowledge from your education, past FRC robots, the car you drive and pretty much everything. Being creative is about harnessing those influences. Are you going to copy, riff on those variations or maybe throw it away? these are the skills students have to develop. You can't shut out the outside world and think they are going to have a unique perspective. Personally, I would be pretty upset if my students only looked at RI3D, but they don't. Some like cars, some have taken physics, some dug up a bunch of random videos of machines, some watch RI3d, some watch the Einstien matches of 08, some watch mythbusters and etc. Each bring their own perspective, their own mix of ideas. Some want to be outside the box as far a possible, some explore the box thoroughly.

I don't think shutting out influences makes you more creative. You have to learn how to analyze them. filtering all this is difficult. you will find that teams that use proven solutions often are creative but they simply did not have the wherewithal to test the unknowns.

[Qbot2640]

Place me firmly in the camp of wishing for no RI3D or Buildblitz. Won't rehash all the same arguments.

What I would like to see - SI3D (strategy in three days) discussions / debates...or maybe "Robot In The First Three Days of Week Four" (RITF3DOW4).

[philso]

Originally Posted by cadandcookies

PS: There's nothing about Robot in Three Days that says only professional engineers can compete...

If I recall correctly, Team O'Ryon was a group of college students, many of whom are FRC alumni and continue to mentor FRC teams.

Originally Posted by GrifBot

I like RI3D, and certainly hope that there will be some teams doing something like that this year. However, echoing some of the thoughts that peopled have stated, it can be annoying if you think of a great idea, and then figure out that RI3D did it. You don't want to seem like an unoriginal copy cat.

Due to the constraints that one has to work with (rules, materials, the laws of physics...) there are often only so many good solutions and many independent designs will end up looking similar. The nature of FLL is such that one tends to see much more diversity in design and strategy than in FRC. Yet, at the FLL World Festival, my son saw quite a few other teams from around the world who used strategies and (large and complicated) mechanisms very similar to ones he used. I really doubt that they copied him or that he copied them. They were more pleased and amused and not at all annoyed to see each other.

Many teams did not seem to have problems copying the small-wheeled shooter concept that our friends at Spectrum posted 11 days into the 2013 season. Quite a few teams copied the multi-directional ball collector mechanism that 973(?) used in 2012. So what's the problem with copying what one of the RI3D teams did?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=111360

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Intuitively, sure. However, last year's evidence doesn't really suggest the results scale like that.

In 2014, every design pursued some sort of catapult launcher. All but one used an overhead roller for accumulation. Only O-Ryon differed significantly in terms of the strategy pursued for their robot.

The relatively simple approaches the RI3D teams implement are probably about right for less experienced, low resource teams to emulate. Due to the short time (3 days), there are only so many approaches that the RI3D teams can experiment with and implement. Some approaches just require too much time to prototype and build. With no disrespect, I don't believe that any of the RI3D teams could have implemented anything like the climbing mechanisms implemented by 254 or 1114 in 2013.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by philso

The relatively simple approaches the RI3D teams implement are probably about right for less experienced, low resource teams to emulate. Due to the short time (3 days), there are only so many approaches that the RI3D teams can experiment with and implement. Some approaches just require too much time to prototype and build. With no disrespect, I don't believe that any of the RI3D teams could have implemented anything like the climbing mechanisms implemented by 254 or 1114 in 2013.

I wasn't calling for complex mechanisms, simply pointing out that more teams doesn't automatically invite a large diversity in conceptual designs. With the exception of O-Ryon, all the teams focused on scoring in the high goal and loading off the ground as their primary functions (and O-Ryon ended up with high goal capability, anyway). They didn't focus on passing to other robots, inbounding from the human player, scoring in the low goal, or catching. If anything, Ri3D teams overshot the mark for a large portion of their key audience in 2014 (as already discussed in this thread).

[rick.oliver]

Big fan of Ri3D and Build Blitz and I am among those who look forward to evaluating their results and facilitating a thorough discussion among our team and using that data to inform our concepts as we come to consensus on our design basis.

My personal aspiration for our team is that we are among those teams which are fully playing the game with a robust, competitive robot. The input from these experienced mentors has been invaluable to us.

I find the discussion concerning the absence of a MCC design interesting. I assumed that the examples of robust, competitive robots delivered in 72 hours, including a design package, would enable anybody to copy and execute, thus raising the floor of the competition. I believe we performed better for it and I know that it increases the excitement and retention for us. I suspect that is true for many others.

If that is not true for some, how could it become true for them? Having one or two of the groups committed to MCC? Is the unique game design of 2014 a contributing factor what would be MCC?

[IronicDeadBird]

God this fence I'm sitting on is killing me...
On one hand you are forcing creation of strategy by taking a high level group and saying "this is what they are doing"
some people would say
"well if they are smart and they know what they are doing why wouldn't we copy it"
Honestly I don't know how I feel about that.
One thing I will say is that if this has the ability to give a starting team a footing and a presence so they can continue and build up I am all for it.
Gr8 Db8 M8s 8/8

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by rick.oliver

I find the discussion concerning the absence of a MCC design interesting. I assumed that the examples of robust, competitive robots delivered in 72 hours, including a design package, would enable anybody to copy and execute, thus raising the floor of the competition. I believe we performed better for it and I know that it increases the excitement and retention for us. I suspect that is true for many others.

What's crazy is I think the team JVN bot was better than 80% of teams this year.

[Greg Needel]

Sure I'll comment on this..... Last year I was very critical of the Ri3D and their impact on the program, since the thing that is most important to me is the creativity and innovation in designs it is obvious that some of that "ah ha" can be take away with watching all of the 3 day robots.

On the other side of things my team like to be competitive at competitions that we attend. As vince Lombardy said "winning isn't everything, but wanting to is.." Last year when my team looked at all of the Ri3D robots it pushed us to think "how will be be better than that. Since almost every team sees those ideas, most will be atleast that good."

On another note about it's impact to competition, I love having more functionally scoring machines available for 2nd picks in alliances. Over the years it has become easier to find 2nd pick robot that can actually contribute to an alliance instead of just trying to find one that can barely drive. This elevation in play will also enable more interactive games to be designed.


Here is the bottom line. If your team doesn't like Ri3D because you are worried about loosing the creativity, don't watch them. If your team has a great process already, use them to help you push your design strategy to the next level. If your team needs ideas and suggestions, study what the Ri3D teams do and use that information to help yourself be successful.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

What's crazy is I think the team JVN bot was better than 80% of teams this year.

Your statement is true, but I don't think it's crazy.

In my mind it would be unreasonable to expect even the majority of teams to create as good of a robot as these 3-day robots. I laid out my reasoning why I think this in a similar thread not too long ago.

On a side note, this is why I would love to make a simple robot that could reliably just make eliminations as a 2nd pick in 3 days. Most teams should not be trying to build a robot that will seed first at their competitions, which some of the Ri3D robots probably would have. There should be a robot out there right away after kickoff that any team can see and replicate to make sure they can do at least something in the game well. If Ri3D really is targeting the mid-lower tier teams, I think this is undoubtedly the way to go.

Since the teams that build the Ri3D robots are so good, maybe they could cut down on the amount of time available for work. 3 days might just be too much. #Ri2D Sort of joking, but not really...

[Foster]

I for one hope that there are six or more RI3D robots, I'd love to see them play at a Week 0 event. I want the the strategy guy from the Poofs and Simbotics to then show us "strategy at a match" in action.

The side benefit is that it would end all this Paul vs. JVN smack talk and let Paul prove on the field he has the better robot

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Foster

I for one hope that there are six or more RI3D robots, I'd love to see them play at a Week 0 event.

They could play a Week -5 event!