Metaphysics in car model competition
01 Metaphysics prevails, superstition prevails
1. Problems
Why have some confusing phenomena appeared in the smart car competition scene in recent years. It seems that metaphysics prevails and superstition prevails in the entire arena. The smart car competition seems to be relatively simple, but it actually contains very systematic and complex content. It can cultivate the core ability of engineering majors in colleges and universities to solve such complex engineering problems. Although the students have spent more than half a year making car model works, there are still a lot of software and hardware problems left in the car model. These problems are affected by many factors in the complex and changeable on-site competition environment, and often students cannot distinguish the specific reasons why the car models cannot finish the competition. It seemed that some kind of supernatural power was leading the scene, and it felt that there was some kind of mysterious and mysterious power influencing the outcome of the game.
2. The Curse of Taking Photos
Later, this kind of metaphysics appeared in many versions. One is that before the competition, never take a photo with Zhuo Da. It is said that this is very likely to cause problems in the next game. Even if you succeed in the preliminaries and enter the finals, the car model will be sent in the finals the next day. It's like a car model entering the Bermuda Triangle, and there are all kinds of bizarre failures. It seems that my car model has been cursed, and the next race will be more or less ominous.
The second version is to use the Zhuoda dialog box indirectly. It is said that this dialog box can have a buff effect on the car models finishing the race, or you can send your own car model photos. This method can improve the completion rate of the car model, and it has passed the test, and this method is very useful. This is the second version of Metaphysics.
3. Trodat commentary
In addition, there is a widely circulated version of metaphysics, that is, during the race, if you encounter Zhuo Da’s on-site commentary, the race will fail, unless he is not directly next to the track, but is commenting through the live broadcast camera . Over the years, in the finals, many teams wanted to quietly win the prize, but they all died honorably under Zhuo Da's commentary. In fact, in this year's negative pressure electromagnetic finals, the champion and runner-up teams in the preliminaries all failed to complete the final task under Zhuo Da's commentary.
This year's outdoor off-road vehicle competition is the best proof of how good Zhuo Da's commentary is. This is a competition between four teams under Zhuo Da's commentary. As a result, four car models started off, and none of the car models could complete the race. The scene of the car accident was very tragic. Only in the second round, only two car models managed to finish the competition. The car models who did not come back were torn apart by the impact, and they were dismembered by five horses.
4. Metaphysics
The reason for these metaphysical legends also reflects the complexity of the smart car competition. In fact, no matter how well prepared, there will always be some uncertainties on site. If a detailed plan is not made, it is possible that when encountering difficulties, the main reason may not be grasped, and the wrong direction may be found, so that the race cannot be completed within the limited competition time. These mysterious and mysterious legends are just because we can easily remember some scenes with impactful results, but actually ignore the connection between many things under normal results. In any case, engineering problems need to go through reliable theoretical analysis, accurate data calculation and causal correlation verification, and finally find the defects in the car model works and solve them.
※ Appendix ※
1. Baker Zhang
The smart car competition is another particularly outstanding competition in our automation discipline. Teacher Zhuo's article really has the same feeling.
Faced with a complex engineering problem, young people often have not yet established the overall control ability of the system. This is actually a management problem that needs to be continuously summarized and established in practice to establish the knowledge of the dependencies of key elements. This is also the purpose of CBI to explore teaching methods.
In addition, the third thing we set in the values of new engineers is truth-seeking, which means to let students understand that science is science, it must be repeatable, and we must stick to this belief and not believe in metaphysics. The reason why metaphysical phenomena sometimes appear is because my understanding of the mechanism and risk management are not in place.
When I was in graduate school, I studied polymer functional materials, and I did a lot of experiments every day. After "boiling" a pot of reagents from morning to night, performance testing must be carried out. The most distressing thing is that the performance is fluctuating. I really want to burn a stick of incense to pray for God to bless me to get the experimental results I want. The most troublesome thing about the subject of chemistry is that the mechanism is still not very clear, so it can only be guessed first and then verified. It can only be checked a little bit, including whether the flask is not cleaned? In order to get rid of this factor, we design our own processing technology and detection method. A lot of non-core peripheral work like this was done, until it was discovered that there was a problem with the pickling process. But this kind of work is the exploration process of scientific research and craftsmanship.
In the end, the instructor concluded that it is normal if the performance of the chemical experiment is not good, because there are many factors that are not clear. Conversely speaking, if the performance of a certain experiment is particularly good, it means that your research direction is correct and you can get good results. All that remains is to find all the factors to make it reliably reproducible.
Later, I was relieved to read electrical subjects such as automation. At least the circuit logic never deceives people, and the repeatability is much higher. But once the system is complicated, this metaphysical tendency will also appear. This requires our teachers to help students strengthen their confidence, sort out the key factors, and check a little bit. This process is a good learning and re-learning process. Ensuring that the system outputs deterministic results in a stable and reliable manner is itself part of the professional competence of an engineer.