This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've been thinking today how good (smaller, lighter, more efficient) opendog would become if they just replaced all 3D-printed nonsense with CNC-machined or stamped metal and injection-molded polymers (and of course revamped electronics). Maybe it'd really be on par with Spot then, or (with added sensors, brains etc.) wipe the floor with Chinese knock-off dogs.
But that requires scale. I really hope somebody helps here: we need some sort of Stability for robotics.
If we don't optimize for low cost, at current costs those machines will be completely non-competitive.
What projects do you have in mind?
Yeah, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit available for improvements; even simple drill-press and 6061 aluminum could do a lot. But the toolchains for those processes are much more complicated and the processes themselves much messier, so it's not really in consideration. And, conversely, there's a lot of potential spaces for... more improvizational materials, where people are willing to design around them.
Scale is part of the problem, but you don't need that much scale. The FIRST FRC environment has a ton of devices being sold on scales of hundreds or low thousands that involve a lot of custom metal parts, and while they're not always good, they're definitely extant and productive. Part of that reflects the tax- and labor-advantaged nature of a situations where most customers and some sellers are non-profits or subsidiaries of non-profits, but that's ultimately a political choice: there's no that must favor FRC or Vex but not more productive matters.
The deeper issues... I think the big one is that there's simultaneously a big desire to build everything from 'scratch', but also to see some level of devices as indivisible, at least for this class of project. LEGO could make (arguably, does make, through Mindstorms) an injection-molded-polymer Spot knockoff, but the sort of people who want to build a LEGO kit aren't trying to put together a Spot variant. Even a lot of the Pi-and-cheap-servo posebots are largely marketed under the theory that they're an introduction to everything you'd need to learn for the project.
Some of this is just inevitable Pareto Principle stuff, but I think a lot of it's downstream of the death of manufacturing. The emphasis and ease-of-access to bits makes it so easy to considering scaling and production as someone else's problem, because, for no small part, it has been. I think the extreme time constraints and very limited purchaser base have done more to keep the FIRST ecosystem around as long as it has.
There's a few interesting takes on custom motors like the DizzyMotors, but almost all have a step one that involves taking apart a larger, expensive motor. Moteus is getting closer, but it's still (AFAIK) still in a prototype level, and it's very far from anything especially hitting the limits of the medium.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link