FAHA: What exactly is a secret?

[Ken Leung]

I wasn't quite sure why the sender wishes to remain anonymous for this message, but since it's his/her wish, I will post the message.

************************************************** *****
Many teams have things which they keep secret and carry with them to the grave. However, there are always cool new things that teams come up with that everyone runs to the pits to get a look at. So I'm left wondering: what exactly is a secret after you've been to competition and anyone and everyone has photographed your robot to pieces?

[ngreen]

It's not so much as being a secret as not being well known or known at all. Yeah...there are lots of cool little neat things people do on their robots that if someone looks and ask questions they will figure it out..

But that doesn't mean everyone will no about it...that's why I always would analyze as many robots as possible and continue to look at pictures of new...and especially old...robots. Many well known teams get their robots ripped apart by people trying to figure out their mechanism so they are well known...and many of them deserve this recognition...but there can also be some unknown or rookie teams doing neat stuff that unless you look for it you may never see and be secret...

As I see it, it is hard to hide secrets in mechanical devices or other things very simple to figure out based on pictures...but secrets can hide very well in how you control something..look at other robots and see how not only the mechanical mechanism of it works but how it is controlled...

Last year I built a pneumatic control system that stopped the cyclinders mid-stroke to control the arms...We completed all last season with it...told many judges at both times at Houston...used it a couple times to stack...had visible pictures of it stopped at mid-stroke on the web including CD but I don't think anyone from other teams particular asked or figured out how it worked. They saw the piston made the arm go up and down but they never looked to see how can they stop it half-way like that....

I prefer to keep one secret per season so when someone finally asked about stopping the cyclinder mid-stroke, I release my plans from last year. I know I wasn't the only person to use the cyclinder like this but very few people knew you could with what we can use. I had people flat out tell me that was impossible...even after using it and explaining it to so many people.

So go try to figure out others "secrets". If you ask they might give you the details on it....But then again its sometime fun to keep a great idea in your head no one will use...maybe I'll reveal it next year...or hopefully it will make it on our robot and someone will come up and ask about it....or maybe I could release it so everyone has access to it (I really would if it was so easy for some and has a small amount of controversy involved in it)...so i'll wait...

Keep a secret, at least until someone ask.

PS YAY!! 100 post!!

[Solace]

I think the only thing that is truly worth keeping secret is an innovative autonomous mode. as long as it isn't paired with extensive technical components, an autonomous mode is really the only thing that can be and is changed at the competitions after a team sees another team do it in a more efficient manner. I remember last years UTC New England regional - there were a few teams who completely re-did their autonomous modes the first day after watch the practice rounds of some of the faster robots. sure, i doubt that anyone is going to copy StangPS after they see it, but there are plenty of extremely simple but ingenious tricks to autonomous mode there are easily copied if one has a little advance notice.

As far as mechanincal components are concerned, i see no reason to keep things secret this late into the build season. If a team is still so far behind that they are still at the phase where they can take a design they see on CD and build their robot around at the fifth week, then we probably have the obligation to help them out a bit

[ngreen]

It's worth keeping if I can add a 1/4 lb and change a little program, and make what your robot does go from ordinary to spectacular. And allows you to keep other teams from doing what they want to do.

[Dan Richardson]

I think and have come to realize that most of the time people aren't keeping it secret because they are worried someone will copy them, they are keeping it secret because they know teams will formulate strategies against them.

Me? I'm very open, because I figure if our bot is good enough we'll be able to play around those strategies, and I also figure most teams won't really worry about it untill our first regional, and teams see what you can really do.

Sometimes it gives an edge however, for example every year 312 is very sure not to let ne of their strategies leak out. They are a brilliant team every year at the UCF regional and on the national level. I would kill sometimes to figure out what they are doing so I could formulate my plans against or with them early. But I can't because I don't know what it is. SO thus I have to figure it out at competition, when I also have 100,000 other thoughts on my mind.

Same with the rest I imagine.

Thats the only reason why I can see to keep things secret.

[KenWittlief]

a FIRST event is just about the only place in the world where you can talk about (brag) what you have done on your bot that is really clever, and have anyone else understand what you are talking about

and if people see your bot doing some really cool stuff on the field, and you dont explain to them awesome technology behind it

they will just assume you did something simple, and nobody will ever know what a genius you are.

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

a FIRST event is just about the only place in the world where you can talk about (brag) what you have done on your bot that is really clever, and have anyone else understand what you are talking about

and if people see your bot doing some really cool stuff on the field, and you dont explain to them awesome technology behind it

They will just assume you did something simple, and nobody will ever know what a genius you are.

I prefer simple things that do amazing things

Yeah it is important to tell, explain, teach, add on, improve, and a whole other list of things but sometimes there is a strategy to picking the right time to do this. Especially when it comes to robots competing in your regional..

Not that you don't want everyone to do great in the regional and work well. You want uniqueness. you want that ability to do things in such a way that no one else is doing. You want other to have uniqueness themselves.

If you give that away to other team you are competing it narrows the range of creative robots and solutions. If someone gave out in the first week a plan for a robot that is amazing and unique, a guranteed winner of sorts, people would copy this design and not make their robot uniquely theirs. The teams that take this design lose because they are not being innovative and creative in their thinking and team that choose to be innovative and different lose out because they can't compete.

Not that this doesn't happen naturally some. Take stack attack for example, people who followed the strategy laided out in the first competition and tore their stacker down to a pusher did better in competition because of how the game worked out. But this made the competition un-innovative and single-tracked for many. Those who braved a innovative path were left as ineffecient and worthless because how the game turned out.

That is why I keep secrets. I want to see what ideas come out of other teams heads. I like it when they ask, an question, and improve what I have thought of or improved, but I hate to make a straight use of something that has been thought of or used before.

I push myself to question why things were done that way? What could be improved? Why can't you do that instead?

And if you ask enough questions and the right questions you will find a better solution to give back again when the time is right.