The Triplet Challenge

[Ken Patton]

I admire the extra efforts taken by collaborating teams to make sure their schools are each involved in the decisions being made during brainstorming, design, and build. This has got to complicate the build season when you have people at these different locations making decisions.

I empathize with those who are not sold on the collaboration idea, because of where it could lead. This is where we are counting on the great people who are running teams like 1114 to continue to do a great job of staying true to their goals of growing and inspiring without going too far.

I worry that if each team only has to do a fraction of a robot (i.e., you do the base, we'll do the arm, those other guys'll do the software) that it will be seen as a shortcut that gives collaborators an advantage and keeps the team from doing the complete set of elements that all the other teams are doing in this competition.

I would be willing to bet that many people who think collaboration is just fine would change their tune the first time that a team builds two complementary robots (instead of identical robots as we see now). Imagine if a team built one awesome shooter that docked with one awesome feeder-bot. The feeder bot has incredible storage capacity, pushing power, and a collaboratively-designed connection that locks the bots together and allows balls to flow right through. Not simple twins anymore. Siamese twins, one with great eye-hand coordination, and one who has lifted weights his whole life. Sure, you still have to have one of 'em (the "smart" one ) get to be a picker so it can pick the other one, but we know thats possible. You could call one bot "Gretzky" and the other "Semenko"