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Unread 14-12-2013, 10:20
Leav's Avatar
Leav Leav is offline
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AKA: Leav Oz-Ari
FRC #3316 (D-Bug)
Team Role: Mentor
 
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My wish? make the BuildBlitzs/RobotIn3Days projects go away...

I'm not sure how this opinion will be received by the community, but I have to get this off my chest.

I have a lot of respect for the people doing the 72 hour build marathons after kickoff: they are all experienced FIRSTers and engineers, well known and admired in the FIRST community.

However, I think that the build marathons are detracting from the creativity and challenge of the FRC competition.
  • The marathons are probably going to stifle the creative process. If teams choose to watch they can easily be locked on an idea and be unable to shake it from their mind.
    Showing 5 working robots after 72 hours is going to probably cover most bases in terms of basic ideas for the 2014 season. This will rob teams of the sense of accomplishment which comes with brainstorming and deciding on your own robot.
  • An obvious retort to the above point would be "just don't watch the marathons or look at their results", but we all know it will be hard to avoid. Also, there is a dillema here: these are robots built by professional FIRSTers, are you really not going to try and learn from them when you have the chance?


Catch 22 here:
  • if you watch or look at the robots, your creative process is disrupted and you will probably lose some (if not most) of your pride in your creation.
  • If you don't watch or look at robots (assuming that's even possible while still browsing CD and Facebook), you are putting yourself at a possible disadvantage when compared to other teams.


In the end, the only real solution (in my mind) is not to have these marathons exist at all, but I don't really see how that can be achieved without the marathoners themselves bowing out...

FRC is for kids, can't we keep it that way?
__________________
"We choose to build robots this season and do the other things; Not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
-Paraphrasing JFK

Participated in FIRST as a student: 2005-2006 (But still learning every season!)
Mentor: 2008 - ? (Team 2630 2008-2011, and Team 3316 since 2013)
Engineer: 2011 - ? (B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Mech. Eng. from the Technion IIT)
FIRST Volunteer - 2007 - ? (MC, FTA, FIRST Aid etc.)
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