[BB] 2010 Game Hint #1

[gallo26]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

While I agree, being on track won't make Dave comment on the hint.

I don't see why everyone's glued to the track idea. The lexan seems almost useless in such a setup.

The lexan is merely a bracket used to mount a sensor. The track itself would be much more supported by pvc or steel tubing. This is just a single junction to count scores. Previous posts have ruled it as more of a way to mount something to the track, not mounting the track to something

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

following kick off we have a huge brainstorming session and as should be with all brainstorming sessions there are no bad ideas.

The key words here are "design work" (in Dave's post) and "Brainstorming" (in your post). These are two different things.

You are correct that true brainstorming has no bad ideas. Once brainstorming is over, ideas are evaluated, and performing this evaluation without regard for the requirements is a sub-optimal practice.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

While I agree, being on track won't make Dave comment on the hint.

I don't see why everyone's glued to the track idea. The lexan seems almost useless in such a setup.

I'm with Chris, the track idea doesn't seem very viable. I think it's just a holder for game pieces or a part of the field. Maybe its a just a holder for a sensor discussed in previous parts of this thread.

-RC

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

I have to disagree with you here, following kick off we have a huge brainstorming session and as should be with all brainstorming sessions there are no bad ideas. If you come up with something that's against the rules you can always tweak it to fit the rules and that illegal design may lead you to numerous legal ones that would be any better. By the time you agree on the final design yes it should be checked for all of the rules, but saying that it'll only cause trouble isn't entirely correct. Although, yes you should understand what you need to design before you do so, but isn't that the whole purpose of the game animation?

With what are you disagreeing? The original question ("there is always someone that wants to design something illegal, and they don't know there is a rule against it") and my response ("make them read the rules before they design") both had to do with design. Your comment has to do with brainstorming. They are orthogonal concepts, with only a single point of intersection.

And no, the purpose of the game animation - or any other part of the kick-off broadcast - is NOT to substitute for reading the rules. Any student that thinks so is missing the point of the broadcast (and for that matter, the rules), and any mentor that lets them get away with that is doing a disservice to the team.

-dave




-...

[zachav39]

I believe that the fact it came out on Christmas Eve has something to do with it.

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Using the official game hint photo, and the fact that the bronze polycarbonate piece was most likely 1/4", I was able to extrapolate all other dimensions from the pixels. (30.8 isometric pixels ~ one inch). Most dimensions are pretty accurate, but take 'em with a grain of salt. Here's the quick and dirty Solidworks files:

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

RC,
Here are my models pro-e native. As art said also, all values are guessed based on assumptions in the game hint photo, use at your own risk.

greg

Thanks Art and Greg. It helps to see the model in 3D.

-RC

[Jon Jack]

Why must people always struggle with reading the rules? Are there too many words? Dave, maybe some people need more pictures!

[JVN]

Originally Posted by jamie_1930

I have to disagree with you here, following kick off we have a huge brainstorming session and as should be with all brainstorming sessions there are no bad ideas. If you come up with something that's against the rules you can always tweak it to fit the rules and that illegal design may lead you to numerous legal ones that would be any better. By the time you agree on the final design yes it should be checked for all of the rules, but saying that it'll only cause trouble isn't entirely correct. Although, yes you should understand what you need to design before you do so, but isn't that the whole purpose of the game animation?

Hi Jamie,

If you're designing a robot to the game animation and then "tweaking it to fit the rules" later, I would say you're doing some shoddy engineering and missing the entire point of this process.

One of the most important parts in an engineering design process is to DEFINE THE PROBLEM. If you don't properly understand your problem, how can you solve it? Reading the game manual (the ENTIRE game manual) is the only way to understand the problem given to us in the FIRST Robotics Competition. The animation is just a pretty tool to help outsiders understand the game; the manual is for me, the animation is for my grandmother.

On 148 the first thing we do is read the "key" sections of the manual as a team, this ensures that every student is familiar with all the rules.

You mentioned brainstorming...
Brainstorming is a creativity exercise where a large number of ideas are generated in the hope that a few of them are good. This typically happens early on in the process.

When it comes to brainstorming on 148 we like to throw around illegal ideas just like everyone else. There are no bad ideas during brainstorming. However, our team spends a LOT of time referencing the rulebook during brainstorming to make sure that all the ideas we move forward with are LEGAL. We also typically make a long list of questions we need to get answered (legality questions we will answer via Q&A or functionality questions we will answer via prototyping.)

We've only got 6-weeks...it would be downright irresponsible for us to spend any significant amount of time on an illegal idea; those are by definition, "bad ideas."

If you get a minute, take a glance at my paper on using an engineering design process and look at the section on specifications, pay careful attention to "design constraints."

-John

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

Why must people always struggle with reading the rules? Are there too many words? Dave, maybe some people need more pictures!

This year's game animation should be a "south park" style Woodie reading the entire game manual from cover to cover.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by JVN

This year's game animation should be a "south park" style Woodie reading the entire game manual from cover to cover.

Dang! How did you know what it was going to be? Now I have to start all over again...



-dave



.

[hipsterjr]

Dave has been posting a lot today. I'm trying to update his morris code list and I have to edit my post every 10 min.

[Jon Jack]

Originally Posted by JVN

This year's game animation should be a "south park" style Woodie reading the entire game manual from cover to cover.

Excellent Idea!

Can we make sure to schedule nap and snack time intermissions in this year's kick-off broadcast?

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by JVN

This year's game animation should be a "south park" style Woodie reading the entire game manual from cover to cover.

Respect the manual's authoritah!

Spoiler for This is only one level deep, I promise:

Oh my god, they killed G14!
You b*******!

[kgzak]

I would have to say reading the manual is very important. Last year we started coming up with ideas for the robot and one idea was to make it impossible to score on us. We then read the manual and discover that we weren't able to do any of the ideas we had come up with. This year I am definitely bringing my laptop to kickoff and getting the rules up on my computer before we get back to school to start working.

[Rich Kressly]

I just want to know if 148 can now assign JVN 4 hours of shop cleaning duty for participating in this thread... ....

we now return you to regularly scheduled programming