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Do You Know Enough or Are You Good Enough To Be a RoadTester?

rscasny

This question in my title has been in the back of my mind all year long and I have been somewhat slow to answer it. Oh, I could make excuses...not enough time, Covid-19 lockdown, and so on. But it has weighed on me for while. And this week, I want to take the time on this Friday afternoon to answer it.

 

(Drum roll....)

 

The answer is YES!

 

While the answer is rather short, the background to the question perhaps requires more explanation.

 

I think it was late last year (2019) when I had a roadtester return a product  because he said he could not do it justice given his level of knowledge. I appreciated his honesty. I consider him a quality, professional individual. But I had wished he had given me a chance to talk with him about it. I would have probed him about what he felt he needed to know to review the product. How could I help him gain that knowledge? If I had gotten him a mentor, would he have agreed to continue the roadtest?

 

But this experience made me reflect on who makes a good roadtester and what a roadtester needs to know. Obviously, we roadtest not only elementary products (educational/maker)  but very complex products (FPGA dev boards or test equipment). Some knowledge of course is necessary. However, one does not need to be a genius to be a roadtester. A roadtest is a lot of things to different people. For some people it's a project. For other people it is a fancy unboxing. And for even other people it is a teardown-like exercise that digs deeply into the product. Each of these roadtest paradigms requires different levels of knowledge. A detailed application goes a long way in telling me what paradigm you are shooting for. But for me, I think there is room for every one of these testing styles.

 

I don't expect everyone to know everything about a product such that he/she never needs to ask for help. element14 does have the luck in possessing some members who are very bright, talented, and highly experienced. But my sense is that they worked at developing their expertise over a number of years. For me a good roadtester does not necessarily have to be an expert, but he/she knows when to ask for help. I think this is an area where a new roadtester needs to work on: don't be afraid to ask for help. You can do it by making a comment on the roadtest page. Engineering is rarely a isolated experience. Sure, there is the Einstein who changes the world all by himself. But for the most part, I believe engineering is a collaborative experience.

 

Someone (may have been Shakespeare or some famous Greek like Socarates) said Know Thyself. Learn to know and trust yourself and what you can handle. If you only feel comfortable right now with a Raspberry Pi, that's fine. Apply to those roadtests and strive to be the best Pi roadtester there is! As you learn, you will likely apply and be selected for more complex roadtests.

 

Good roadtesters have not only technical skills, but also have other skills that I am mindful of when I select applicants as official roadtesters or that I bring to the sponsor's attention when we meet to discuss applicants. Good roadtests participate in the community. Good roadtesters have a consistent track record. I watch for people who have a passion or great interest in what they do. I learn it from their application. These kinds of people help me and help our sponsors. Just this week I had a roadtester tell me something was not wired correctly on the kit that was shipped to him. I told the sponsor. Well, he was correct and the sponsor is working on correcting it. No roadtest or roadtester is perfect. But the perfect roadtester is someone who takes what he knows and uses his/her knowledge to the best of his/her ability.

 

I have a number of roadtests running this month. I encourage you to apply for one that interests you.

 

Randall Scasny

RoadTest Program Manager

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  •   Thank you for asking the question.  I struggled with this mightily before throwing my hat in the ring the first time.  I had read reviews by and .  Whoa!  Them is some smart fellas.  I read some less than kind responses to some real newbies that had been selected for road tests.  Not many, but they're out there.  So why roll the dice on applying for a road test?  Some stuff, I'm pretty good at.  Maybe I have a crazy enough application or test idea that stands out from the crowd.  And sometimes, you don't need Sheldon Cooper or Leonard Hofstadter.  Sometimes you need Howard Wolowitz. <- Big Bang Theory reference.

     

    Like above, I'm interested in the struggles.  Community members have helped me in my projects (Thank you!).  I want to be helpful also.  To me, this validates the desire/requirement for Community involvement before being selected as a road tester.  We have to be willing to reach out.  I didn't reach out during the Avnet Azure Sphere Sensing the World challenge - and my project failed.  Wow was that humbling.  It was also self inflicted.  You don't have to go it alone.

     

    Randall hit the nail on the head with "passion".  If there is a road test that feeds your passion, apply for it.  If you're passionate about it, you have some knowledge of the subject and what direction you need to go.  Your passion will give you the drive to continue and to reach out when you hit road blocks.  I'll also share that even if you're busy, you'll figure out how to get it done if you're passionate about it.  Life's funny that way.  We somehow find time for the things that inspire us.

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  •   Thank you for asking the question.  I struggled with this mightily before throwing my hat in the ring the first time.  I had read reviews by and .  Whoa!  Them is some smart fellas.  I read some less than kind responses to some real newbies that had been selected for road tests.  Not many, but they're out there.  So why roll the dice on applying for a road test?  Some stuff, I'm pretty good at.  Maybe I have a crazy enough application or test idea that stands out from the crowd.  And sometimes, you don't need Sheldon Cooper or Leonard Hofstadter.  Sometimes you need Howard Wolowitz. <- Big Bang Theory reference.

     

    Like above, I'm interested in the struggles.  Community members have helped me in my projects (Thank you!).  I want to be helpful also.  To me, this validates the desire/requirement for Community involvement before being selected as a road tester.  We have to be willing to reach out.  I didn't reach out during the Avnet Azure Sphere Sensing the World challenge - and my project failed.  Wow was that humbling.  It was also self inflicted.  You don't have to go it alone.

     

    Randall hit the nail on the head with "passion".  If there is a road test that feeds your passion, apply for it.  If you're passionate about it, you have some knowledge of the subject and what direction you need to go.  Your passion will give you the drive to continue and to reach out when you hit road blocks.  I'll also share that even if you're busy, you'll figure out how to get it done if you're passionate about it.  Life's funny that way.  We somehow find time for the things that inspire us.

Children
  • in reply to kmikemoo

    I wholly concur with your statements on ‘passion’ and finding the way.  It always induces a never-say-die mentality in people which is why the best leaders/delivers induce that passion in others to bring the best out in them.

     

    Concomitantly, I also think its worth applying for RoadTests that seem to be getting little traction where you have the skills to do it but you might not necessarily be that interested.  It must help with keeping the roadtest programme viable and diverse and supported by manufacturers/industry.

  • in reply to kmikemoo

    Thanks for the mention - it's actually taken me a while to think about how I should respond to such a flattering comment.

     

    The truth is, I'm not as smart as you might think I am. Looking back, it's clear that I too, had started from a low base and have slowly been making continuous improvements as I go along. Reflecting on some of my first few RoadTests, they are definitely not up to the same standard that reviews frequently reach today. With regards to TBBT, I'd have to say I'm probably not even a Howard Wolowitz! It's a skill that is developed over time and one that we learn from not only reviewing but from reading others reviews. Some of these things are a bit subjective, like style, but it's something I think that many people could eventually develop. But perhaps the thing that is most important is just to understand what you are doing, do the right research and solve the problems as they happen as best as you can given the constraints.

     

    I know not all comments on reviews are going to be conciliatory, especially for those reviews which didn't get much further than opening the box and make some "bland" remark about the product that could be found off the blurb. I think that some level of dissatisfaction is warranted but at least they delivered something in the end (although history usually shows that rarely do these reviews ever get updated beyond their initial state). But I think this is where prospective RoadTesters have to be honest about what they know and what they don't from the outset. It might be tempting to pursue a win by promising things that you just can't do due to a lack of equipment or skill, but that's a "short" game that doesn't help the program, the sponsor, the community or your stakes in future RoadTests.

     

    So as for the grand question of whether you know enough or are good enough to be a RoadTester? Perhaps you should just put in an application and let Randall and the sponsors decide!

     

    - Gough