I haven’t seen anything about doing a Robot in 3 Days this year, I’m hoping that is because nobody is doing it… Anybody know?
Jack
A little birdie told me there were even more groups doing it this year than last year; I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.
I haven’t heard anything about Build Blitz but rumor has it that Ri3D is a go with more teams this year.
I really hope there’s another build blitz/Ri3D. Does anybody know if Vex plans to update their product line again for this year?
Check the ad at the top of the chief portal. They are announcing new products on Dec 16th. Also VEXpro.com has the 16th date as well for product updates.
What is your reasoning for not wanting it?
Didn’t like it?
See thisthread for some various points of view on RI3D/ Build Blitz projects.
Although I enjoy watching the build, I feel like it dilutes the robot gene pool. Too many Ri3D robots showing up at competition for my taste.
I know that a lot of people dislike the fact that the Ri3D groups produce a crop of robots that ends up being very limiting for many teams. It’s tempting to just go for the option that you already know works (because one of the Ri3D teams built it), and while I think that these designs can be useful for rookies or teams with less resources, it does seem to have somewhat of a limiting effect on teams’ creativity.
Ahh thanks! I completely forgot this thread even happened…surprisingly.
The usual reasons I see are something along the lines of this:
By running through a lot of the prototyping, with lots of teams watching, there are a lot of what you might call “copycat” robots. These robots take the designs and just build those, whichever ones they like, rather than taking the IDEA and running with it, or developing their robots fully independently.
These are valid reasons, for some folks. For others, those robots are exactly why Ri3D exists…
I’m a fencesitter on this one; I can see both the risk of copycats and the “oh, hey, this works, how do we optimize it for our current design/manufacturing situation” factor at play. Therefore, I remain undecided.
Agree with all above on fence sitting.
We were a Ri3D “copycat” last year (technically BuildBlitz). We had a near 100% rookie team of students/mentors who had no concept of how to solve the challenge, build a robot, or even identify basic tools. Forcing a student led design would have likely resulted in us not completing a robot on time or it not being executed well.
We ended up with a respectable (though not super consistent) robot that performed well enough to get our team excited. Now we have a crop of returning students that are able to communicate some design ideas, better iterate on robots, and have more potential to make design contributions this year.
So… I believe we are proof that Ri3D does have a place in the “inspiration” category. I still believe it is both more inspirational and educational for a team that knows almost nothing to “copy” a competitive design and tweak it to fix all the issues that arise from poor execution, than for the team to build something completely original that is inherently flawed. Once a team starts to build team IP and original ideas, Ri3D should become less useful.
However, the number I saw thrown out there recently about ~10% of the team submitting FIRST choice orders on time reminds me that we on Chief Delphi are the minority. We still have a large number of teams out there that lack the mentorship to execute original and competitive designs on their own… and building a Ri3D bot is probably better than building a kitbot drive base with a non-functional mechanism.
Given how much thought is put into these games I would absolutely say the GDC has the meta for what a good robot might need. Last year that was a quick efficient intake and high angle launch mechanism that over shoots any defensive options. The GDC does a good job of establishing meta through its animations without giving too much away (it why they always use the crazy mechanisms like the boot that kicks the ball perfectly) and the game design is consistent enough that even without RI3D with all the resources that you can access in the end you are going to have a lot of robots that look very similar because they all are going for the same goal.
Hope that makes sense I re-wrote it a few times…
They better be doing it!
I think a lot of it is just convergence. A catapult with an overarm roller was what a lot of teams used just for simplicity. It might be that a few teams copy them, but I for one feel the need to tweak designs to my liking.
I enjoy Ri3D/BuildBlitz and think they provide an important resource for many teams, and have a notable benefit in raising the floor of robot quality at competition.
That said, I think the scale may be getting a bit out of hand, and am not too pleased by the prospect of even more teams doing it.
How come, specifically?
I am, once again, excited by the prospect of the Ri3D type builds. For my team, it was an encouraging factor last year, though their design ended up having nothing in common with any of the 3 day builds. May as well jump in this dispute early: I saw far fewer direct copies on the field last year than I expected, and plenty of variation and adaptation. I’m for it.
I know this topic has been addressed before, but I wanted to add my thoughts, though they probably don’t mean too much.
I agree with the others who are on the fence. On one hand, Ri3D may be squandering robot creativity and design - that would be the most immediate observation. I know that on Kickoff 2014, I expected a ton of copies of 1114’s Simbot SS. However, while that did happen, there were many variations of it and even more radical designs ranging from catapults to even a certain wheeled-shooter, so I still think there was a healthy amount of ideas out there. Moreover, I think a lot of the teams that appeared to be copies of Ri3D may have arrived there by coincidence - a low launching catapult with a horizontal roller bar is a pretty simple solution to Aerial Assist as I’m sure many teams found out.
On the other hand, Ri3D gives many teams who are struggling a basic idea of what they could possibly do. I would much rather see a copy of one of these robots than an immobile box or barely functional/inefficient mechanism. I don’t even know what percentage of FRC teams, especially rookies even know about Ri3D, what with the vocal minority on CD sometimes. In the end, I think it come down to personal opinion - some will dislike it, and some will appreciate it.