Andymark Churros

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by hrench

Simpler math that we can teach kids. So they can learn STEM, not trial and error.

Trial and error is a integral part of STEM, though. It's always worth considering to what degree the problem at hand is worth modeling, and to what degree you should just try stuff and see what works. Reality is a really good simulator .

We should certainly teach math when it is relevant and useful, but it is foolish to write off trail and error as "unscientific." After all, empiricism is pretty much the fundamental idea behind all of science.

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Trial and error is a integral part of STEM, though. It's always worth considering to what degree the problem at hand is worth modeling, and to what degree you should just try stuff and see what works. Reality is a really good simulator .

We should certainly teach math when it is relevant and useful, but it is foolish to write off trail and error as "unscientific." After all, empiricism is pretty much the fundamental idea behind all of science.

Agreed! Sometimes my shop detail can mock-up a working part before my strategy team can prove their math!

Which goes back to FRC 4607 CIS failing better than most teams...

[hrench]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Trial and error is a integral part of STEM,

I was going to start with "where in STEM is trail and error?", then I realized...

STEM: Science, Trial, Error, Math.

Thought that was funny.

[FrankJ]

A lot of great inventions are a result of an accidents or observation of an unplanned events. Vulcanized rubber, post it notes, Penicillin are good examples of this. The intelligent, documented observation of the event is what distinguishes from the "hey watch this" type of randomness.

Since the people with the money don't like the term trial & error, you can always call it experimentation or research. Both calculation & experimentation are useful tools to solve a problem. Engineers are really just applied problem solvers.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

A lot of great inventions are a result of an accidents or observation of an unplanned events. Vulcanized rubber, post it notes, Penicillin are good examples of this. The intelligent, documented observation of the event is what distinguishes from the "hey watch this" type of randomness.

Since the people with the money don't like the term trial & error, you can always call it experimentation or research. Both calculation & experimentation are useful tools to solve a problem. Engineers are really just applied problem solvers.

Often the hardest part of this is fully understanding what parameters are actually affecting the situation, as well as to what degree they matter. This is where having a theoretical understanding of the mechanisms at play (i.e. a model) is very useful - it tells you where to look. And thus experimental variables were born...

At work recently a colleague of mine and I spent hours trying to work out the math for a particular problem. Couldn't figure it out to a satisfactory result. So, we just started testing and *poof* the answer revealed itself. However, had we not at least TRIED to do the math we wouldn't have known what parameters to vary in our experiments.