GP question

[kamocat]

Back at the Portland Regional in 2009 I was working on a basic autonomous: go forward a ways, and then spin until the end of autonomous.
(I had some 'fire on trailers' code too, but the coach asked me not to enable it because it wasn't well-tested)

Anyways, I think there were problems with it not turning soon enough, and for some reason I decided to use a "delay and feed" on the user watchdog to see if that was the problem. What ended up happening was the wheels didn't stop after 15 seconds. Or when we "disabled" the robot. As far as we knew, they didn't stop until we physically shut the robot off. (I can make speculations from memory, but the why isn't so important in this case)

So I fixed that and was ready to test again, and then these two guys from another team came over and wanted to help. This is where GP comes in.
I wasn't really interested in their help, but I wasn't sure how to communicate it, so I went along with it.
The first thing they said was that a Case Structure was a loop, and that's where the program was getting caught up, so I needed to use a local variable to pass data out of it.
I had been working with LabVIEW for over 6 months at that point. I wasn't sure how they got that idea. I told them it wasn't, I made an example VI to show that it wasn't, and it wasn't until I spent 5 minutes with my head in my hands wondering how I could explain this to them in a way that they would get it, that they remembered what a case structure actually was (an "if...else" statement) and then left.


SO I tried to be gracious and professional, and I ended up wasting 15 minutes that I could have spent working. Perhaps I was slightly too gracious.


What should I have done?

[Andrew Schreiber]

First, thank you for taking the time to explain to the two guys that they were wrong and thank you for not just blowing them off. I am sure they had every intent on helping if they could.

Second, whether you were too gracious or not depends on your priorities. For me learning and helping others learn is far more important than winning. For some people they would rather just win. There is nothing wrong with either view.

I am sorry I could not give you a definitive answer but like Alan Anderson said, GP is like a compass. It won't tell you where to go but it will help guide you if you know where you are going. If you know that your priority is helping people grow then GP will guide you one direction, if your direction is inspiration through demonstration then GP will guide you a different direction.

Hope this helped.

[Phil Ross]

I don't think that anyone would have been offended if you had just explained that you knew what was wrong and wasn't in need of any assistance while letting them know that you appreciated the offer.

Hope that helps.

[EricVanWyk]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the offer. I'm pretty sure I have this bug nailed down, but I'll be sure to come grab you if I don't.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by EricVanWyk

Thanks guys, I appreciate the offer. I'm pretty sure I have this bug nailed down, but I'll be sure to come grab you if I don't.

This.

If somebody offers help where it isn't needed, you can simply say, "Thanks, but we're good for now." If they persist in asking to help, you go to "The best way for you to help us is to let us do X. We'll ask you when we need help." (X ideally involves them not being there.) If for some reason they still stick around, have a mentor talk to their mentor about being too helpful. If it gets to that point, then I don't think anyone will have a problem with your telling them to go find another team to help, other than the overly helpful helpers.

Now, if they're giving wrong information, and they try to convince you it's right, the best thing to do is to convince them that their information is wrong--in a gracious manner, of course. This is what you did.

In short, it's possible that you were a little too gracious, but you're going to have to be the judge of that. Gracious Professionalism is a balance between being gracious and being professional. Sometimes you go a little too far one way and sometimes you go a little too far the other way. How far is too far? You make the call.

[Nick Lawrence]

Originally Posted by EricVanWyk

Thanks guys, I appreciate the offer. I'm pretty sure I have this bug nailed down, but I'll be sure to come grab you if I don't.

That's pretty much how I would put it.

I'd probably go by afterwards, towards the end of the competition and thank them again, too.

-Nick

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

I'd probably go by afterwards, towards the end of the competition and thank them again, too.

-Nick

Good point. Perhaps your response to other teams that offer help after could be "Thanks, but Team 12345 already [helped out / offered to give me a hand]!"