Keri Morgret

Here's what I wrote over at RC Groups on the thread about bringing modeling back, and I think some of it is appropriate for this discussion as well.

Has anyone discussed what might be done to an ARF kit that would encourage someone to either experiment and modify that model, or to use a kit for the next time?

My background: I'm involved with RC boats, not planes, have seen similar debates and hand wringing in ham radio, and have a background in instructional design and technology.

It seems that underneath it all, a lot of times the issue is "if they get it ready to operate, they don't have an understanding of how it's put together and what factors are influencing either other, and it's just a big black box".

In an ideal world, could any of these be solved with outstanding documentation that would come with something that was ready/almost ready to run? In hypothetical the case of the RC warship combat boats (for which there is no RTR), I could see it being an explanation about each major part and why it was chosen and what it influences.
- There are two motors of this size here. They were chosen because they were a good tradeoff for weight vs size vs performance. If you want more power, you could swap them out with a motor like xyz, but you'll also need a bigger battery, which will take up more space and add more weight.
- This is the speed controller, it's here because it does this and such. Something cheaper that would do this would be product abc, but then you lose the feature bcd.
- The props have this many blades and are at this pitch. You can't change certain things because that's the way it was on the original ship, but what you can change is the somethingorother, and it can help you make tighter turns but you sacrifice something else.

Could better instructions and explanations be part of an answer, if it helped people be more successful in their first experiences and encouraged them to continue in the hobby and chose something more complicated later on? Or even give them the confidence to start with a kit instead of buying a RTR/RTF?

Edit: I came here from a RCUniverse posting, and didn't realize that this was in an aircraft-specific board, so apologies for the off-topic example. The RCUniverse thread talked about people who purchased ARF planes that asked the most basic questions that they wouldn't have needed to ask if they had done any building from a kit and had learned as they went along. That's in part what sparked my question about the need for instructions and explanations.