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Unread 05-08-2004, 23:45
phrontist's Avatar
phrontist phrontist is offline
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Exclamation It is about the robots (OpEd)

The following is my opinion, and I shouldn't have to say that. Anything anyone says is an opionion. <hippy> Perception is reality man! </hippy>

Reading the spotlight, it seems the stance of most CDers is that FIRST "isn't about the robots." I must say I disagree ferverently. Sure, FIRST should inspire kids to look into engineering careers, but it shouldn't end at inspiration. FIRST should be about satisfaction in having applied your intellect to creating a working device, and developing your "people skills" to boot, and providing a means to this end should be the highest priority of FIRST. I consider the highest honor in FIRST to be winning at nationals, certainly not the Chairman's Award.

This post was triggered by discussion of selling gearboxes as a way to raise funds. I see this as the exact opposite of what FIRST should be about. My team probably could have purchased a gearbox this season, and certainly had a better bot as a result. But we went with a ghetto direct drive and made a lot of mistakes even in doing that. In making these mistakes we developed a healthy desire to do better, and we're excited about what we can do this year. I have no problem with a team reading a whitepaper by Andy Baker about how to optimize a gearbox and then using his guide to design and order components. I don't care about whether they actually machine the parts, but they should be forced into thinking about why they are doing what they are doing. There pride should be on the line and failure/mediocrity should be a grim prospect motivating them.

The rationalization has been made that in "the real world" engineers spend a lot of time making purchasing descions and altering OEM products to meet a specifc need. This is not what FIRST should be about because its far less fun/educational. FIRST is an inherently artificial microcosm of the real world, which gives us the benefit of picking and choosing what we want to include.

If you can't spend the time about thinking what your bot needs gearbox wise and opt to buy one instead, you shouldn't get that gearbox.

Buying is a shortcut around thinking!

Sorry about the rambling, and I look foward to counter-flaming
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