Robot in 3 Days 2015

[Mr_I]

Originally Posted by Ekcrbe

As a side note, for an analysis of the "killing creativity" claim, check out the very good post that Chris is me made in another thread.

After reading both threads, allow me to give another perspective.

One of the dangers of Ri3D IMHO is that it "allows" students to not develop their own creative juices. I heard the tale from another mentor on a team "far far away": last year his team was faced with a technical issue he thought he could use in a teachable moment as a way to analyze and find solutions to problems. He told me of his dismay when the students said "let's check the video", meaning the Ri3D clips on YouTube!

I do see the value of allowing under-resourced teams (aren't they all?) to quickly target better solutions rather than pursue failing ideas (cough, my team some years, cough), but it seems now teams that simply wait a few days don't have to "waste time" with the heavy lifting of design, just copy what they see.

A decade ago ago Team 811 discovered (and adopted) the Team MOE Collaborative Robot Design process, where we spend three days analyzing the game, developing strategies, fostering concepts, and ultimately zero in an overall design by Monday after Kick-Off, and it has served us well for years. Last year we built an amazing robot that won at Week Zero, semi-finals at GSD, Finalist at WPI (one missed autonomous shot shy of winner!), semi-finals at NE-CMP (clutch failure), competed at St.Louis, and won at Mayhem and RiverRage, yet we still have kids to this day complaining that our design should have matched one of the Ri3D bots. Huh??

Bottom line: If Vex Build Blitz is going to focus on elements and not the whole design, I'm all for it! Maybe Ri3D could consider emulation.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by Mr_I

After reading both threads, allow me to give another perspective.

One of the dangers of Ri3D IMHO is that it "allows" students to not develop their own creative juices. I heard the tale from another mentor on a team "far far away": last year his team was faced with a technical issue he thought he could use in a teachable moment as a way to analyze and find solutions to problems. He told me of his dismay when the students said "let's check the video", meaning the Ri3D clips on YouTube!

My team was met with the same challenge last year. They ran into a technical issue that they couldn't figure out how to solve. They ended up watching a Ri3D video and it inspired them to come up with a creative improvement to their catapult. In the end, the robot's catapult didn't look anything like a Ri3D robot.

That's why I am a supporter of Ri3D, and why I pushed to start the 'Snow Problem team in Minnesota. Every team is different and uses resources for different things, it isn't required anyone watches Ri3D nor is it required they watch the new Build Blitz stuff. In the end, I believe Ri3D/Build Blitz make FIRST more inspirational.

[Ben Martin]

I strongly support Ri3D, and am very glad that they are doing it again this year with more teams.

I think that creativity takes many forms, and I strongly believe that just as much creativity can come out of looking at an existing solution and adapting it as much as coming up with an idea "from scratch," though I do believe that most creativity in FRC stems from adapting an existing object or mechanical device concept used in the wider world into an FRC application (buckets in 2013, etc). There is an awful lot more time put into "detail the concept and executing" in FRC, which are heavily pushed toward success/failure by the initial design decision.

Ri3D provides teams with several tested solutions. Teams are able to prototype and build their own solutions, but they know there is a tested solution to fall back to if needed even at the end of week 1.

Having had multiples of both struggling and successful years, there is a lot more learning that happens with the students on tweaking and improving a machine that works than struggling to make a machine work at all.

Robots that at their core use Ri3D concepts to speed prototyping and overall layout design can still develop original mechanisms that win creativity awards.

[Dunngeon]

Originally Posted by Mr_I

After reading both threads, allow me to give another perspective.

One of the dangers of Ri3D IMHO is that it "allows" students to not develop their own creative juices. I heard the tale from another mentor on a team "far far away": last year his team was faced with a technical issue he thought he could use in a teachable moment as a way to analyze and find solutions to problems. He told me of his dismay when the students said "let's check the video", meaning the Ri3D clips on YouTube!

I do see the value of allowing under-resourced teams (aren't they all?) to quickly target better solutions rather than pursue failing ideas (cough, my team some years, cough), but it seems now teams that simply wait a few days don't have to "waste time" with the heavy lifting of design, just copy what they see.

A decade ago ago Team 811 discovered (and adopted) the Team MOE Collaborative Robot Design process, where we spend three days analyzing the game, developing strategies, fostering concepts, and ultimately zero in an overall design by Monday after Kick-Off, and it has served us well for years. Last year we built an amazing robot that won at Week Zero, semi-finals at GSD, Finalist at WPI (one missed autonomous shot shy of winner!), semi-finals at NE-CMP (clutch failure), competed at St.Louis, and won at Mayhem and RiverRage, yet we still have kids to this day complaining that our design should have matched one of the Ri3D bots. Huh??

Bottom line: If Vex Build Blitz is going to focus on elements and not the whole design, I'm all for it! Maybe Ri3D could consider emulation.

Do you have a link/file to MOE's design process? I couldn't find one when I searched.

[Mike Marandola]

Originally Posted by Dunngeon

Do you have a link/file to MOE's design process? I couldn't find one when I searched.

http://moe365.org/moeu/problemsolving42005.ppt

[martin417]

I have done no "in depth analysis", no trade studies. I haven't spent hours thinking about the issues, the ethics, and the morals. I won't make a passionate statement about how it should be done, because I don't know.

What I have noticed since the start of RI3D and others, is that instead of a dizzying array of different ideas at each regional, some awesome, some not so much, some that work others that fail, we now have a lot more "vanilla pudding". Most of the robots end up being a clone or a derivative of one of the robots built in the videos. Yes, more of the robots work better than in the past, but there are fewer "wow, that is cool! I never would have thought of that!" moments.

I don't think RI3D is evil, but I do think it has reduced the level of creativity, and given teams an easy way out that too many are taking. It's like using a cheat code in video game, yeah you get past the boss, but it's not as satisfying, and the game is not as exciting. (this is an analogy only, I am not saying that RI3D is "cheating")

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by martin417

I have done no "in depth analysis", no trade studies. I haven't spent hours thinking about the issues, the ethics, and the morals. I won't make a passionate statement about how it should be done, because I don't know.

What I have noticed since the start of RI3D and others, is that instead of a dizzying array of different ideas at each regional, some awesome, some not so much, some that work others that fail, we now have a lot more "vanilla pudding". Most of the robots end up being a clone or a derivative of one of the robots built in the videos. Yes, more of the robots work better than in the past, but there are fewer "wow, that is cool! I never would have thought of that!" moments.

I don't think RI3D is evil, but I do think it has reduced the level of creativity, and given teams an easy way out that too many are taking. It's like using a cheat code in video game, yeah you get past the boss, but it's not as satisfying, and the game is not as exciting. (this is an analogy only, I am not saying that RI3D is "cheating")

This is perhaps the most level headed argument yet, and perhaps the opinion that I currently sit at.

The bad teams are going to do bad, and the good teams are going to well, but it seems that the diversity and creativity you used to see in the middle "class" just isn't there anymore.

With that being said, the value of Ri3D is undeniable. Being able to get 24 hours worth of design/testing/development from some pretty impressive people is just too good to pass up. Ri3D has helped to raise the middle-lower tiers and helped to give the middle-upper tiers a solid foundation, and that's not benefit that I'm willing to just throw away.

The challenge for me is how do I balance Ri3D's help with the creativity and design opportunities for my team and me.

This is why my team has implemented a relatively simple set of checks to allow our folks to do our fair share of prototyping and designing and integrate the Ri3D teams' findings, results, and builds to enhance our process.

- Sunny G.

[Mr. B]

I am convinced that---Without the 3 day robot build, most teams would have tried to build a catapult and the teams with the best mentors would have succeeded while many would have failed. Experience in the art of design is passed on in volume instead of one on one but it is passed on. After all, how many ways can one build a ball pick-up, a catapult or for that matter a wheel.
Creativity is taking what is learned in 3 days and applying tweaks to perfect a design.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

The bad teams are going to do bad, and the good teams are going to well, but it seems that the diversity and creativity you used to see in the middle "class" just isn't there anymore.

While I generally agree with your post, I think this point could use some addressing. "Bad teams" and "good teams" are not absolutes. A "bad team" is often a team that is still getting enough experience to be a "mediocre team". One of the things that Ri3D offers is an example path from concept to completion. Last year our team used it as something similar to a team's build blog. We could come up with ideas fairly well, but had trouble with the "how do you assemble that properly" part.

[James1902]

Originally Posted by martin417

I have done no "in depth analysis", no trade studies. I haven't spent hours thinking about the issues, the ethics, and the morals. I won't make a passionate statement about how it should be done, because I don't know.

What I have noticed since the start of RI3D and others, is that instead of a dizzying array of different ideas at each regional, some awesome, some not so much, some that work others that fail, we now have a lot more "vanilla pudding". Most of the robots end up being a clone or a derivative of one of the robots built in the videos. Yes, more of the robots work better than in the past, but there are fewer "wow, that is cool! I never would have thought of that!" moments.

I don't think RI3D is evil, but I do think it has reduced the level of creativity, and given teams an easy way out that too many are taking. It's like using a cheat code in video game, yeah you get past the boss, but it's not as satisfying, and the game is not as exciting. (this is an analogy only, I am not saying that RI3D is "cheating")

I guess my problem with this line of reasoning, and why I don't really subscribe to the "vanilla pudding" argument, is because I haven't noticed any decline in "wow, that is cool!" moments since Ri3D started.

I have also not done any in depth analysis but my anecdotal evidence directly contradicts yours (a common problem with anecdotal evidence) so I tend to disagree with the premise that Ri3D is stifling creativity at all. Certainly it's not any more damaging then looking at past games or robots.

Perhaps the onus is now on us as mentors to leverage the videos themselves as a teaching experience, and encourage students to take creative steps beyond those shown. Or have them propose something completely different that they can show is better.

TL;DR: I haven't seen any decrease in FRC creativity, and I fail to see what everyone has gotten so worked up about.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by James1902

TL;DR: I haven't seen any decrease in FRC creativity, and I fail to see what everyone has gotten so worked up about.

Agreed. I guess the problem isn't with the information that Ri3D's provides team, It's how they use it. It's up to the leaders of the team to help guild them in how the students use the wealth of info they are getting. My team sees RBi3D's a bit differently. We see this as a benchmark to compare our designs to. We know a lot of folks are going to be using some variation of what they see. We need to make sure that we are designing something that performs at or above what comes out of the 3 day builds.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by martin417

I have done no "in depth analysis", no trade studies. I haven't spent hours thinking about the issues, the ethics, and the morals. I won't make a passionate statement about how it should be done, because I don't know.

What I have noticed since the start of RI3D and others, is that instead of a dizzying array of different ideas at each regional, some awesome, some not so much, some that work others that fail, we now have a lot more "vanilla pudding". Most of the robots end up being a clone or a derivative of one of the robots built in the videos. Yes, more of the robots work better than in the past, but there are fewer "wow, that is cool! I never would have thought of that!" moments.

I don't think RI3D is evil, but I do think it has reduced the level of creativity, and given teams an easy way out that too many are taking. It's like using a cheat code in video game, yeah you get past the boss, but it's not as satisfying, and the game is not as exciting. (this is an analogy only, I am not saying that RI3D is "cheating")

Martin, do you feel that with this loss of creativity there has also been a loss of inspiration? Specifically for teams in the lower quartile of performance, do you think the students on those teams are more inspired by a creative solution that may score a grand total of 1 point all season or by a less creative solution that may reliably score even if it isn't going to win many events?

Basically, does "raising the floor" help increase inspiration? Are there other methods we could go about doing this without impacting creativity?

Not attacking your view, just curious. The crux of the anti Ri3D/BB arguments seems to think that Creativity is correlated with Inspiration and Performance is not correlated with Inspiration.

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Martin, do you feel that with this loss of creativity there has also been a loss of inspiration? Specifically for teams in the lower quartile of performance, do you think the students on those teams are more inspired by a creative solution that may score a grand total of 1 point all season or by a less creative solution that may reliably score even if it isn't going to win many events?

Basically, does "raising the floor" help increase inspiration? Are there other methods we could go about doing this without impacting creativity?

Not attacking your view, just curious. The crux of the anti Ri3D/BB arguments seems to think that Creativity is correlated with Inspiration and Performance is not correlated with Inspiration.

Part of being inspired to enter a STEM field is the realization that "hey, I can do this!". If FIRST published a set of plans, and the kids just followed the plans, I doubt they would get that feeling. While I understand that Ri3D and others is not a set of plans, I do believe that a teenager (notorious for taking the easy way out) will have a tendency to watch the videos rather than try to come up with their own unique concept.
The biggest challenge we as mentors face is to reign in our own enthusiasm and let the kids come up ideas. I absolutely believe that we can help, influence, guide and correct without giving them the answer on a silver platter.

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by martin417

Part of being inspired to enter a STEM field is the realization that "hey, I can do this!". If FIRST published a set of plans, and the kids just followed the plans, I doubt they would get that feeling. While I understand that Ri3D and others is not a set of plans, I do believe that a teenager (notorious for taking the easy way out) will have a tendency to watch the videos rather than try to come up with their own unique concept.
The biggest challenge we as mentors face is to reign in our own enthusiasm and let the kids come up ideas. I absolutely believe that we can help, influence, guide and correct without giving them the answer on a silver platter.

And I think that with resources like Ri3D to use as guides, those kids can, in a way, get their feet wet without drowning. Watching the videos points them in the right direction, but it doesn't give them everything they need. If we take the mean team that actually "relies" on Ri3D for design inspiration (since I think this population is what people are focusing on), they're also more likely than others to be the ones that don't have access to all the fancy tools and big sponsor help. They're the ones who will need to improvise a little and make do with what they have.

Imagine for Ultimate Ascent that a team sees Ri3D's pneumatic-wheeled shooter and thinks, "Hey, that's probably what we should do," but then finds out that they don't have any pneumatic wheels that will work. Now their challenge is to replace those wheels with ones they can find that will still suffice. That's something that can be tackled by said team, and they're learning how to solve problems at that level. This episode is repeated a number of different times, each of relatively small scale. Trying to start from scratch would have been monumentally over their heads, but now it's broken down into bite-sized problems that still allow them to grow.

Essentially, Ri3D is the only vehicle by which some teams can reach that "Hey, I can do this!" moment, while without it all they would have said was "I guess I can't."

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by martin417

I have done no "in depth analysis", no trade studies. I haven't spent hours thinking about the issues, the ethics, and the morals. I won't make a passionate statement about how it should be done, because I don't know.

What I have noticed since the start of RI3D and others, is that instead of a dizzying array of different ideas at each regional, some awesome, some not so much, some that work others that fail, we now have a lot more "vanilla pudding". Most of the robots end up being a clone or a derivative of one of the robots built in the videos. Yes, more of the robots work better than in the past, but there are fewer "wow, that is cool! I never would have thought of that!" moments.

I don't think RI3D is evil, but I do think it has reduced the level of creativity, and given teams an easy way out that too many are taking. It's like using a cheat code in video game, yeah you get past the boss, but it's not as satisfying, and the game is not as exciting. (this is an analogy only, I am not saying that RI3D is "cheating")

I don't think what you are seeing is a direct result of RI3D but more of a result of the vanilla nature of the games since they started, especially last year.