Home
Hey guys. I've got a new post over at Foam Dart Goodness which discusses the difference between knowledge and understanding and I want to get a discussion going to hear other peoples thoughts. Are there too many "modders" out there reliant on walk-throughs on forums and websites? Do people expect too much? Is there such a thing as too much spoon feeding or does it help to introduce new modders into the hobby?
My thoughts?
Rote-learning, or memorising facts with little or no understanding about them, is not in and of itself a bad thing, it’s just not as useful as understanding what those facts mean in a practical sense. To get back on the topic of blasters, let’s say you read a how-to on the internet on how to remove the air restrictors in a Nitefinder, and then performed the mod yourself. Assuming you were following a decent guide and you performed the modification well, you should probably succeed in your presumed goal of making your Nitefinder shoot further/faster/harder. Well done; full points all round. However, if you took the time to stop and think about what you were doing; why removing the AR achieves these results, how the catch/plunger mechanism works, etc, then these principals can later be applied to other blasters without the need for a step-by-step walk-through.
More than this however, this understanding of common blaster principles is what makes the difference between someone who can follow instructions, and someone who can mod blasters.
Ultimately what I’m trying to say here is that knowledge, and by this I’m referring to committing facts to memory, is better than doing nothing, but still pales in comparison to gaining a real understanding of said facts. By all means please follow walk-throughs where available, but always be looking for that deeper understanding. Again, don’t just remember how to do something, try to understand how it works.
My thoughts?
Rote-learning, or memorising facts with little or no understanding about them, is not in and of itself a bad thing, it’s just not as useful as understanding what those facts mean in a practical sense. To get back on the topic of blasters, let’s say you read a how-to on the internet on how to remove the air restrictors in a Nitefinder, and then performed the mod yourself. Assuming you were following a decent guide and you performed the modification well, you should probably succeed in your presumed goal of making your Nitefinder shoot further/faster/harder. Well done; full points all round. However, if you took the time to stop and think about what you were doing; why removing the AR achieves these results, how the catch/plunger mechanism works, etc, then these principals can later be applied to other blasters without the need for a step-by-step walk-through.
More than this however, this understanding of common blaster principles is what makes the difference between someone who can follow instructions, and someone who can mod blasters.
Ultimately what I’m trying to say here is that knowledge, and by this I’m referring to committing facts to memory, is better than doing nothing, but still pales in comparison to gaining a real understanding of said facts. By all means please follow walk-throughs where available, but always be looking for that deeper understanding. Again, don’t just remember how to do something, try to understand how it works.
