F4 - CADathon 2016

[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by tickspe15

How does separating the teams level the playing field?

In my experience collaboration makes everybody involved better which is the great thing about all the Ri3D-esque groups. If the goal of F4 is to connect people, and your CADithon's goal is to help people become better at CAD it seems counter to both of these goals to restrict collaboration.

To add on, the best engineers and teams "borrow from the best and invent the rest" Collaboration is the KEY to innovation.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by tickspe15

How does separating the teams level the playing field?

In my experience collaboration makes everybody involved better which is the great thing about all the Ri3D-esque groups. If the goal of F4 is to connect people with the goal of helping the community, and your CADithon's goal is to help people become better at CAD it seems counter to both of these goals to restrict collaboration.

I do see your point. However, this is a competition. If everyone was to collaborate a lot of the robots would start to look the same and in my opinion less would be learned. By separating people in small groups and restricting collaboration it will create a bunch of different robot designs and strategies which will be fun to reflect on at the end of the event.

Collaboration would also be unfair if not all teams collaborated. All in all I think its just better to keep everyone separate.

However, there are teams of 2 people each. I am sure there will be plenty of collaboration between the 2 designers which is especially cool for the teams who do not already know each other.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by tickspe15

How does separating the teams level the playing field?

In my experience collaboration makes everybody involved better which is the great thing about all the Ri3D-esque groups. If the goal of F4 is to connect people, and your CADithon's goal is to help people become better at CAD it seems counter to both of these goals to restrict collaboration.

Keeping groups separate does level the playing field IMO. If everybody collaborated and one group in a team of 30 found a loophole in the rules, then it could end up that five or six teams all use the same robot.
F4 is hosting a competition here, there has to be separated teams. If the only goal was learning, then they would host a webinar or somesuch. honestly that's not a bad idea for the future: a collaborative robot for a made up game.
I don't recall Ri3D collaborating too much. Besides, the goal of Ri3D is to help people learn, so making the same robot would be pointless.

EDIT: On the topic of fairness, if 6 teams collaborate on strategy and design, they will probably have a better shot than a single team working alone.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by asid61

F4 is hosting a competition here, there has to be separated teams.

FIRST is hosting a competition here, there has to be separated teams.

God forbid there be collaboration. We may see twins, triplets, or HUNDREDS of the same robots.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by bkahl

FIRST is hosting a competition here, there has to be separated teams.

God forbid there be collaboration. We may see twins, triplets, or HUNDREDS of the same robots.

This is a 3 day creativity event. Its not a 6+ week FRC season. The point is not for a team to have the best robot but is for teams to try out stuff they have never done, learn how to CAD better, and have fun.

Asids idea of a single collaborative robot with a ton of people for a game like ours would be cool and we will explore the possibility for a different event.

Thanks for all your feedback.

Lastly I do not know about you but I am not the biggest fan of duplicate robots. And.. if FIRST became more like VEX where a lot of people copied designs I would probably leave the program.

[Pauline Tasci]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

This is a 3 day creativity event. Its not a 6+ week FRC season. The point is not for a team to have the best robot but is for teams to try out stuff they have never done, learn how to CAD better, and have fun.

Asids idea of a single collaborative robot with a ton of people for a game like ours would be cool and we will explore the possibility for a different event.

Thanks for all your feedback.

Maybe they could learn more when they have ideas from their friends and can improve on ideas.
If this is practice for the real season and real life, wouldn't it be fantastic to teach them what actually goes on? Teach them that you learn the most from collaborating on ideas and making something great?

No one can truly learn without collaboration.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

This is a 3 day creativity event. Its not a 6+ week FRC season. The point is not for a team to have the best robot but is for teams to try out stuff they have never done, learn how to CAD better, and have fun.

If they are trying to learn to CAD better, is not allowing them to talk to other people CADing in the competition really going to fuel their knowledge? I think especially because it is a learning experience, participants should have the utmost desire to learn and teach each other during the 3 days.

IIRC you said there will be a Slack channel for competitors. It seems to me this would be a PERFECT avenue for participants to gauge ideas, feasibility of design, and ask for help. I don't see how that would take away from anything here. Who cares if everyone comes out with similar robots- if they're all individually designed, does it not fulfill the goal of getting more exposure to CAD?

Sending assemblies and full on collaboration/copying designs IS potentially detrimental to your goal, but communication and bouncing ideas off each other isn't.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by bkahl

If they are trying to learn to CAD better, is not allowing them to talk to other people CADing in the competition really going to fuel their knowledge? I think especially because it is a leaning experience, participants should have the utmost desire to learn and teach each other during the 3 days.

IIRC you said there will be a Slack channel for competitors. It seems to me this would be a PERFECT avenue for participants to gauge ideas, feasibility of design, and ask for help. I don't see how that would take away from anything here. Who cares if everyone comes out with similar robots- if they're all individually designed, does it not fulfill the goal of getting more exposure to CAD?

Sending assemblies and full on collaboration/copying designs IS potentially detrimental to your goal, but communication and bouncing ideas off each other isn't.

We will have people answering CAD questions during the event for people who need help. If other competitors want to answer questions relating CAD more power to them.

In terms of talking about feasibility about designs we think the Judges on the final day are much more suited to talk about that.

If you have any more questions if we could talk within PM's it would be great. That way we can keep this thread more free for future announcements.

Speaking of which. I probably should announce our third judge. Our final judge is Devin Castellucci (Robochair) from team 1678. Looks like we will have a very qualified judging panel and I am sure some very valuable design feedback will be received.

Stay tuned for future announcements.

[Sperkowsky]

All team members who have signed up so far have been invited to the Slack. We did have 1 bounced email so if you signed up before I posted this that is you. Please PM me and sort that out.

We also had 2 people sign up as teams without a second member. If that is you please try to get your second member to register. Its also worth mentioning registration closes tomorrow at midnight est.

We have 10 full and complete teams which is above what we were expecting so that is awesome!

The manual and field are pretty much done. We are editing and rendering now.

Anyway we look forward to seeing everyone! Get on Slack ASAP as that is where we plan on announcing stuff. If you are not there then you do not get the announcements.

Lets make this a great event!

- Sam

[ctt956]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

All team members who have signed up so far have been invited to the Slack. We did have 1 bounced email so if you signed up before I posted this that is you. Please PM me and sort that out.

We also had 2 people sign up as teams without a second member. If that is you please try to get your second member to register. Its also worth mentioning registration closes tomorrow at midnight est.

We have 10 full and complete teams which is above what we were expecting so that is awesome!

The manual and field are pretty much done. We are editing and rendering now.

Anyway we look forward to seeing everyone! Get on Slack ASAP as that is where we plan on announcing stuff. If you are not there then you do not get the announcements.

Lets make this a great event!

- Sam

Wait, can I still sign up? I thought the deadline was tomorrow...

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by ctt956

Wait, can I still sign up? I thought the deadline was tomorrow...

Yes you have until 11:59pm est tomorrow 7/28

[ctt956]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Yes you have until 11:59pm est tomorrow 7/28

OK, good! I just submitted a forum.

[OccamzRazor]

You can expect 3-4 more teams tonight to register during our team meeting. I will organize some more experienced students to work with some inexperienced members.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by OccamzRazor

You can expect 3-4 more teams tonight to register during our team meeting. I will organize some more experienced students to work with some inexperienced members.

Awesome! When registering make sure to number the teams or give them different names so we know who is paired with who.

Just a reminder to everyone. You have 6 more hours to register. We have way more people then we were expecting now so, we are not going to allow any exceptions.

Right now we have 3 people who created CADathon teams but do not have a partner. Your partner needs to register in the next 6 hours or your team is not going to be accepted and you will either be placed as a 3rd person of another team or not at all. The teams awaiting a second member are "The Cool CADs", "Lower Merion Robotics" and "BadgerBOTS". If you created 1 of those teams please get a second member.

We are also awaiting people joining the slack chat. We have 27 people in the slack chat but 39 registered people. If you are not in the chat yet get in there now. We will purposely be only releasing the manual there for the first day. Being in the chat is really important to making sure we can make everything run smoothly. If you have not received an invite please PM me an alternate email address.

[Sperkowsky]

Registration has come to a close!

It looks like we are ending with 23 teams. 3 of them are teams of 3 (people with little to no CAD experience were added on as a third person).

Here is the team list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

And... here is the rubric judges will use: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

The manual will be released tomorrow on Slack at 12pm est and and 12am est Saturday here.

Overall we are amazed by the size and excited to see the designs. Should be a blast!