Chief Delphi - Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

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- - Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!! (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95038)

Tyler Olds

04-05-2011 12:27

Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

CD Forum,

Wave Robotics has been selected to participate in a competition called "Coins for Community". We face off against another organization and whoever gets the most amount of votes wins a $1,000 grant!!

We are a few days behind our competition because of championships and need your help to catch up.

Please go to http://www.oshkoshareacf.org/grants_pbg.cfm to vote now!!! You can vote as many times as you want by simply dragging the coins into the Wave Robotics piggy bank and then refreshing the page!

Thank you for your support!

AlecMataloni

04-05-2011 12:36

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I'll help!

BigJ	04-05-2011 12:43

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

This pig has an insatiable appetite for coins.

R.C.	04-05-2011 12:48

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigJ (Post 1059091)

This pig has an insatiable appetite for coins.

Agrees, that was fun. Off to school.

-RC

Akash Rastogi

04-05-2011 13:08

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Refresh is a wonderful tool.

Been on the refresh/feed cycle for a solid hour now. Hope you win!

Bob Steele

04-05-2011 13:14

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I dropped 300 in... will do more later
take care!!3 Hope you win!!
The power of FIRST....
You guys are over 12,000 now.... let's keep it up...take them to 100,000!!

:0)

DarrinMunter

04-05-2011 13:15

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Helped this go from around 4,000 to 7,000. And the other side maybe went up by 20.
Tonight I'll get my daughter to do this. She loves playing these simple games.

Good Luck guys!

Kimmeh

04-05-2011 13:21

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I stopped putting coins in so that I could reply to an email and saw that it had jumped 3,000. :yikes:

Knowing the FIRST community (and the fact that it's now off season) I think you guys have a good shot at winning. :D

BigJ	04-05-2011 13:27

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Aaaand Wave is caught up! EDIT: In one hour!

Akash Rastogi

04-05-2011 13:27

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Stopped for now after tying with them. Good luck!:)

Robotmmm

04-05-2011 13:33

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

This is great fun! You are now ahead! 13,000 vs 11,740.

thefro526

04-05-2011 13:36

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

This is a pretty cool way of getting votes.

When I checked before lunch, it had gone from 3,300 to 4,000. Now it looks like you're in the lead.

efoote868

04-05-2011 13:46

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I love the java robot class, its a wonderful tool.

Robotmmm

04-05-2011 13:49

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Now over 15,000! And the students haven't even seen this yet because they are in class. You will win because Firsters are the best!

Tyler Olds

04-05-2011 14:07

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robotmmm (Post 1059112)

Now over 15,000! And the students haven't even seen this yet because they are in class. You will win because Firsters are the best!

This is crazy! This morning we had 600 and we are topping 20000. Thank you cd community! Please keep it up! These contributions are from a couple of emails, a Facebook post, and this post on cd! Truly amazing!

kwotremb

04-05-2011 14:25

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Dont worry Tyler, Ill help a fellow 93 Alum

Chris27

04-05-2011 14:26

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Someone should make a script... :p

efoote868

04-05-2011 14:54

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris27 (Post 1059125)

Someone should make a script... :p

would you like the java source code? :D

BigJ	04-05-2011 15:11

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Let's not cheat, guys. Keep it professional.

MagiChau

04-05-2011 15:32

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Hope you guys get some exploding bacon if you guys get the $1,000. Oink Oink Boom Wave?

Bob Steele

04-05-2011 15:47

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

33,000 + now!!!!

Wow

Kimmeh

04-05-2011 15:51

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Amusing trend I've noticed: Almost everyone who has commented so is either a mentor or college student.

Are we all really that bored at work? :p

BigJ	04-05-2011 16:04

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Yes. Also trawling CD for my post-CMP hangover

DarrinMunter

04-05-2011 16:06

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Are we all really that bored at work? :p[/quote]

YES.

LightWaves1636

04-05-2011 16:17

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Been doing this for a half hour straight so far and I sent the link to the members of FRC 3320 to help out. I think it's looking good for WAVE Robotics. :)

cpeister

04-05-2011 16:50

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Just did 300 or so till it reached the 40k mark. They aren't going to know what hit them.

J93Wagner

04-05-2011 16:52

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Uh... what? Over 40k as of now? Either we all have way too much free time or something because this has just gotten really crazy (or passionate depending on how you look at it).

Eh, but no matter, I'll spend a bit of time doing this anyway.

Grim Tuesday

04-05-2011 16:56

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by J93Wagner (Post 1059179)

Or we just all have auto-refresh scripts...

Andrew Schreiber

04-05-2011 16:59

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by efoote868 (Post 1059134)

would you like the java source code? :D

Actually yes, I'm curious how you tell where the coins are.

(Hey, it is a really cool application and I'm curious!)

RMiller

04-05-2011 17:01

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

At the rate this is going, it might be over 1,000,000 for the total count (figure 40,000 today x 25 days). Actually, it has been the better part of 40,000 in under 5 hours!

Jon Stratis

04-05-2011 17:23

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by RMiller (Post 1059183)

At the rate this is going, it might be over 1,000,000 for the total count (figure 40,000 today x 25 days). Actually, it has been the better part of 40,000 in under 5 hours!

I think your underestimating... as students get off school this afternoon, I expect the numbers to start skyrocketing. Can we hit 100k tonight?

bobrenjc93

04-05-2011 17:54

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I'm so tempted to write an automated coin deposit script...

WarpSpeed10

04-05-2011 18:02

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

And that's the 50,000th coin. You guys are awesome. Hope you win :D

Robotmmm

04-05-2011 18:06

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

We can do it!

100,000 by midnight.

(And let's do it w/o all those slick scripts I know you guys could come up with.)

efoote868

04-05-2011 21:20

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1059182)

Actually yes, I'm curious how you tell where the coins are.

(Hey, it is a really cool application and I'm curious!)

It took me about ~30 minutes to write this (I wrote something similar for a different thing oh so long ago).

I apologize for using magic numbers for pixel locations. Also, do not run this if you're not willing to give up the use of your computer for a minute.

Code:

/*

 Copyright (C) 2011  Evan Foote



    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify

    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by

    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or

    any later version.



    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the

    GNU General Public License for more details.



    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License

    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

*/



import java.awt.AWTException;

import java.awt.Color;

import java.awt.Robot;



public void robotRunner()

{

  try

  {

    Robot myRobot = new Robot();

    myRobot.delay(4000);



    //get the current system time for reference on how long to run

    long time = System.currentTimeMillis();



    int loops = 0;



    int x = 560; //coordinate of the screen in pixels where the coins appear

    int y = 560;             

    int dx = 0; //or offset, where we're sampling

    int dy = 0;                

    int xmax = 240; //size of the rectangle we're sampling

    int ymax = 150;                

    int xsamp = 40; //AKA the step size between samples

    int ysamp = 20;



    Color c; //the sampled color



    int cnt = 0; //The number of coins we've found



    //run main loop for about 1 minute

    while (System.currentTimeMillis() - time < 1*60*1000) 

    {

      //iterate through each coordiante in the sample space

      for (dx = 0; dx < xmax; dx += xsamp)

      {

        for (dy = 0; dy < ymax; dy += ysamp)

        {

          //snag the color where we're sampling

          c = myRobot.getPixelColor(x + dx, y + dy);



          //check and see if the color is something other than white (like yellow)

          if (notWhite(c))

          {

            //move the mouse to that location

            myRobot.mouseMove(x + dx, y + dy);

            //increment the count so we know when to stop

            cnt++;



            //subtract this sample so we can check again

            dy -= ysamp;



            //left click the mouse, wait, drag it to the piggy bank, wait,

            //release it, wait.

            myRobot.mousePress(16);

            myRobot.delay(50);

            myRobot.mouseMove(448, 537);

            myRobot.delay(50);

            myRobot.mouseRelease(16);

            myRobot.delay(50);



            //TODO: CAN BETTER THIS CODE by:

            //checking that the coin traveled with the mouse. If it didn't,

            //subtract 1 from the cnt and try again.



            //alright, grabbed 5 coins. click on the refresh button

            if(cnt == 5)

            {

              myRobot.mouseMove(1109, 87);

              myRobot.delay(50);

              myRobot.mousePress(16);

              myRobot.delay(50);

              myRobot.mouseRelease(16);



              //wait a second for the page to refresh. Slower internet speeds

              //should wait longer.

              myRobot.delay(1000);

              break;

            }//if count is at 5

          }//if sample is not white

        }//for each y pixel



        //Putting this in the outer for loop so we can break from it

        //as well.

        if (cnt == 5)

        {

          //reset the count and the iteration

          cnt = 0;

          break;

        }

      }//for each x row



      //if dy >= ymax, it means that we've traveled all the way and didn't

      //spot 5 coins. something went bad, refresh the page.

      if (dy >= ymax)

      {

        myRobot.mouseMove(1109, 87);

        myRobot.delay(50);

        myRobot.mousePress(16);

        myRobot.delay(50);

        myRobot.mouseRelease(16);



        myRobot.delay(1000);



        cnt = 0;

      }



    loops++;

    }//while loop



    System.out.println("Number of loops run: " + loops);

  }//try

  catch(Exception e)

  {

    //not sure what would cause above code to be more than exceptional, but

    //if it is, I don't care and we can stop running here.

  }

}



private boolean notWhite (Color c)

{

  return (c.getRed() + c.getBlue() + c.getGreen() < 255*3);

}

gyroscopeRaptor

04-05-2011 21:31

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I suggest you remove the script. It's highly likely that the rules don't have anything good to say about macros to gain points. This could result in Wave Robotics losing by default.

Duke461

04-05-2011 21:44

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

60,000 :D

BrianT103

04-05-2011 22:20

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Just dropped a few coins in for WAVE. You guys are awesome, good luck!

Andrew Schreiber

04-05-2011 22:46

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by efoote868 (Post 1059255)

Just doing a naive search if I am understanding this correctly. Does anyone feel like taking a crack at this using vision processing in Labview?

(Not badmouthing this at all, just curious if any of the FRC students want to put all that vision processing they did to good use)

Ryan Himmelblau

04-05-2011 23:01

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Imagine a world solely consisting of FIRST students. Oh the things that we could do.

Emiller8

04-05-2011 23:10

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Team 11, MORT, is helping out. I have been repeating the refresh cycle for about an hour now. I talked to our website site manager, and the link is now posted on the homepage of our team website as well as on our facebook page. With a score of 63,000 to 15,000, all of chief delphi helping you out, and calling in reinforcements, I seriously doubt that you can lose this. Good luck on getting the 1,000 dollars!!

popnbrown

04-05-2011 23:13

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

If I vote for you guys will you make an attempt to help the technology needs at Emmeline Cook Elementary School? Or atleast help their technology education?

WarpSpeed10

04-05-2011 23:19

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by popnbrown (Post 1059275)

If I vote for you guys will you make an attempt to help the technology needs at Emmeline Cook Elementary School? Or atleast help their technology education?

A robot demo for the kids would be cool. Very GP.

popnbrown

04-05-2011 23:30

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarpSpeed10 (Post 1059276)

A robot demo for the kids would be cool. Very GP.

I voted for you guys because I believe that you guys will do something like ^ that! :D

efoote868

04-05-2011 23:46

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber (Post 1059269)

Yeah, a working search algorithm doesn't take too much time at all. I'm not exactly sure how getpixelcolor works, but its a VERY slow method. Probably a direct screenshot and some image manipulation would make it work faster. :)

Bryany

05-05-2011 10:32

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Brought you up to 104444! It's always fun to see that someone else somewhere is adding coins at the same time you are.

trilogy2826

05-05-2011 11:22

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Thanks to everyone bringing us to over 100K in, I would guess, a record short period of time.

When I first saw that we were against a Middle school technology development fund, I was apprehensive in taking away from them. Wave Robotics already has plans to demo to over a dozen schools and I will make sure that Emmeline Cook is one of them.

Plus, I have an ulterior motive to make sure tech at that Emmeline Cook succeeds as my son will be attending there in a few years.

We also do many fundraising activities and will try to get them involved directly with us.

Unicorn_Knight

05-05-2011 11:26

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

There you go! That was fun ^.^

Tyler Olds

05-05-2011 11:46

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Thank you all for doing your part. I was expecting maybe a couple of thousand coins. Not over 100k!!! I am really flabbergasted to see this insane amount of coins.

Our five year goal is to have a FLL team in each school by 2014. Our opponent will be one of our new schools targeted for this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobrenjc93 (Post 1059197)

I'm so tempted to write an automated coin deposit script...

While I appreciate your enthusiasm, please do not do this. I wouldn't consider this to be very GP.

Thank you once again! I could never have imagined this amount of support!

Brandon Holley

05-05-2011 12:52

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Dropped a few dozen coins in for you, good luck!

-Brando

Dancin103

05-05-2011 13:04

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I fed the piggy! :D Thanks again to WAVE Robotics for being such awesome alliance partners on the Curie field! :)

rcmolloy

05-05-2011 14:55

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Dropped a solid 200 coins in over the past two days. Honestly, with the Delphi community behind you, I would think that Wave has it in the bag. Anyway, I will keep participating until the 31st and get you guys that grant.

BrendanB

05-05-2011 15:58

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Dang that is one hungry piggy! With all these coins being fed I wonder if he will go boom sometime soon! ;)

Robotmmm

05-05-2011 16:10

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

OINK OINK BOOM!

BIGWILLI2081

05-05-2011 17:32

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

well this kept me occupied in school today, now it will keep me away from my homework, so I'd say I'm all for this.

Vermeulen

05-05-2011 17:48

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I'm contributing. Good luck in winning this, you guys are one of the strongest teams I've seen.

DarrinMunter

05-05-2011 17:57

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

How did this come about? Did you have to apply to be selected?

flaming

05-05-2011 20:37

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

another week and you'll have a million

Robotmmm

06-05-2011 17:17

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

You are now ahead by over 100,000!!!!!!!! :yikes: :yikes:

LightWaves1636

07-05-2011 11:21

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

FRC 3320 helped with 1000 coins this morning :)

Mark Holschuh

08-05-2011 11:09

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I put a bunch of coins in this week too. Do we all get our names on the back of your shirts for this?:D

Robotmmm

09-05-2011 21:33

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Bumping this up as the competition is going crazy and catching up FAST! Please spend a few minutes to help out Wave Robotics!

Kusha

09-05-2011 22:09

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Giving this a small bump.
I hope you guys win, I put in 200 or so last night.

DarrinMunter

10-05-2011 15:34

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Something just lit a fire under the other school, every second I'm hitting the refresh and they have about 20 coins being added.

Jon Stratis

10-05-2011 15:43

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Looks like Wave Robotics made their big CD push a little early... They got a ton of coins, but it also made the other school go out and start pushing real hard too :p It's like bidding on ebay... bid too early, and you'll get into a bidding war where the price skyrockets. Wait until the last second, and you'll likely get it cheaper!

Chris27

10-05-2011 16:22

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I put in like 30,000 coins. Now that finals are over, I really need to find something better to do...:o

DonRotolo

12-05-2011 22:16

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

OK, I left it at 331331 vs 215019.

pwnageNick

13-05-2011 09:24

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I left it at 357500-228247
Team 2949 hopes you guys get this!

Andrew Lawrence

13-05-2011 09:35

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Do they realize they're going against the CD community? A bunch of FIRSTers who spend a lot of time on the computer? I'm surprised no one has made a program that will autonomously search the page for coins, put them in the pig, and refresh the page and repeat! I think I've found yet another off-season project!

Alan Anderson

13-05-2011 09:46

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256 (Post 1061284)

I'm surprised no one has made a program that will autonomously search the page for coins, put them in the pig, and refresh the page and repeat!

Someone has made such a program (it's in post #35). But please don't use it; that would not be gracious.

Kimmeh

13-05-2011 10:22

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256 (Post 1061284)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson (Post 1061285)

Someone has made such a program (it's in post #35). But please don't use it; that would not be gracious.

To agree with Alan. It's not a gracious thing to do.

However, if you'd like to test your programming skills, Personally, I'd suggest trying to make one. Once you've gotten it done, don't use it other than just to test. Take pride in yourself that you managed to do it.

Nemo	13-05-2011 12:51

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

A few of your neighbors in Iowa just dropped about 1500 coins in on your behalf. During the same span, your opponents added around 6000. They seem to have about 20 people working on this at the moment.

PaW	13-05-2011 14:04

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

364905 - 262276 when I last played.

Something to do during looong conference calls ...

avanboekel

13-05-2011 20:35

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Just dropped a bunch in.

current score: 369831-277925

They have a bunch of people working at the moment

DarrinMunter

14-05-2011 14:52

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

This is almost like a FaceBook game. There a goal, but at the same time, theres no end in sight. But yet I still have to put some coins in each day.

Katie_UPS

14-05-2011 17:18

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I'm guessing they had classes at a time in their computer lab working to bring up their coin-count:

Based on some very rough math:

At a moderate/pushing pace, you can get about 50 coins a minute. If they have 20 kids in a class (this is conservative, or at least it is compared to my elementary school classes), then 50 x 20 = 1,000 coins a minute. Do this all day, and all of a sudden their school is getting close.

Update:
To make it more fun, see how many coins you can push in a minute. My highest is 65.

CastleBravo

14-05-2011 18:30

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

We should recruit the FLL kids to help out. :]

Ryan Himmelblau

14-05-2011 19:12

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by CastleBravo (Post 1061465)

We should recruit the FLL kids to help out. :]

OMG why didn't we think of this earlier. Is there a forum like CD for lego league? Otherwise we should all tell all the lego league teams we know to help wave.

BTW put in 500 for you guys b4 my finger got tired from clicking.

74Robotmom

17-05-2011 08:01

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Okay, I'll admit, that was fun! I'll keep visiting and filling that hungry little pig. Good luck guys!

Debbie

17-05-2011 12:53

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Did it... emailed my team to do it.. GOOD LUCK!! I'll try to remember to keep voting!

Robotmmm

17-05-2011 13:03

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

SOS!!!

The school is getting serious today and putting in tons of coins!

Please help out!!!!!

Techhexium

17-05-2011 21:44

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

I think we're still doing good. I just helped dump in some coins. When I saw the counter raise by 1000, the school has only dropped about 550 coins.

Robotmmm

22-05-2011 11:58

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Closing in on a MILLION!! :)

If everyone throws a few coins in the pig we can cross that mark today!!

Borobo

22-05-2011 12:09

lets break 1 million

only 85000 to go

Dancin103

22-05-2011 19:06

Re: lets break 1 million

I'm still voting! I love this fundraiser. I've been at it for an hour, it's a great thing to do while you're watching tv! :D

Debbie

23-05-2011 10:17

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

993446 ... getting closer... :) We are trying to spread it on FB too... Good luck!!!

nighterfighter

23-05-2011 11:23

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

The 1,000,000 mark was broken, but not by me. :(

Congrats!

DonRotolo

24-05-2011 16:01

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

1027424 versus 670797 at the moment.

Navid Shafa

25-05-2011 01:37

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Between Mr. Steele and I, Skunkworks Robotics Team #1983 has dropped a total of 1,983 votes/coins and we're still going! Glad to help out another team! You guys are over 400,000 coins in the lead. If it ends up getting even relatively close, just keep CD posted, I'm positive we can ensure that you win!

It was fun playing in the same division as you guys this year, you have a nice themed bot, I love the wave cut outs everywhere :P

Good Luck in the contest and your future endeavors, again glad to be of help!

Navid Shafa

30-05-2011 19:22

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

So, I came back and tossed in god knows how many more coins. I've put in upwards of 4,000 alone...

I decided to run some numbers. At 4:00 pm (Pacific Time) today, on 5/30/11 the score was:

1145320 vs 697526

This has Wave leading by 447,794 coins. Assuming the end is tomorrow night at midnight, there is only 32 hours left.

Therefore, they would need to put in roughly 13,994 coins an hour, to just tie with Wave. Which comes out to roughly 233 coins a minute.

Thanks to Katie, we know a reasonable top speed:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS (Post 1061457)

At a moderate/pushing pace, you can get about 50 coins a minute.

Even if they had 5 people sitting at a computer for the next 32 hours straight at max speed, they might be hard pressed to even out the score.

I'll drop a few more in if I the need becomes urgent, but I think the gap is too great to recover. That being said, never take your enemy small. If they get a 30 kid class tomorrow to work at full speed, they could theoretically catch up in around 5 hours. Get a few classes to work on it simultaneously, and they could catch up really quickly.

By 4:00-ish local time tomorrow, I'm guessing another check is in order. If we see the gap closing, then we know we need to act tomorrow to make sure Wave makes it out on top!

Good luck, glad to help!

*Edit: Oshkosh is in Central time, so my number are slightly off. Considering the small time change, if the contest closes at midnight their time, the gap will be even harder to close.

Debbie

31-05-2011 13:09

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Navid Shafa (Post 1064214)

I'll drop a few more in if I the need becomes urgent, but I think the gap is too great to recover. That being said, never take your enemy small. If they get a 30 kid class tomorrow to work at full speed, they could theoretically catch up in around 5 hours. Get a few classes to work on it simultaneously, and they could catch up really quickly.

.

1146505 to 697546 at 1:00 pm est..

Looking good for wave.. but put a shout out on here if it starts to change and I'll mass out to my team and get them voting again... Good luck!

Navid Shafa

01-06-2011 02:22

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Well, it's finally over and the results have Wave winning by a landslide. Congratulations!

Tristan Lall

01-06-2011 03:34

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

So, if a person can deposit 50 coins per minute, and therefore 3 000 per hour (assuming they can work continuously), achieving the million-and-a-half coin total was the equivalent of something like 380 to 400 hours worth of coin-depositing (a.k.a. mindless crap¹).

If you paid a person the minimum wage in Wisconsin ($7.25/h) to do that work for about 390 hours, that would be over $2 800. My conclusion is therefore that we need a way of sending small cash payments to Wave Robotics with minimal overhead—and then we need to convince ChiefDelphi users to stop wasting time and just pay up! The world is better off that way, because those ChiefDelphi users get to donate to a good cause, their employers get the benefit of the hours of labour that underwrites their donations, and the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation gets to keep its money.²

Now, I'm pretty sure this was actually won—and lost for that matter—by programmers and their dueling scripts, so the net loss to society could be smaller than that $2 800 figure. On the other hand, how many of us would be happy at a wage rate of $7.25/h? (I'm thinking that this enlarged the loss to society, given the calibre of participants in this thread.)

So next time someone posts asking you to click on something repeatedly or do some other menial task, and the sheer absurdity of it doesn't dissuade you from helping out, either:

Automate it out of a combination of expediency and protest. (The problem-solver's solution.)
Consider that once you've impulsively accepted the "challenge" of dropping virtual coins in a virtual pig as a means of contributing to the team, you'd actually be better off checking if Wave Robotics has a "Donate with Google Checkout" (or other equivalent) button on their webpage.

Actually, the real problem-solver's solution is this: figure out a way to overcome the frictional effects of small financial transactions (e.g. impulse control, authentication, etc.), and account for the (minimal) recreational benefits of playing this game, with the overall objective of making donations as attractive as spending time dropping coins in a pig. That way everyone actually wins.

¹Full disclosure: Minesweeper is fun too. But I'm deliberately keeping my time-wasting labour to myself, so that nobody knows how much time I'm wasting.
²Practically speaking, I know that income and labour aren't often this granular, but I think the point about more productive uses of labour stands.

Tyler Olds

01-06-2011 16:48

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Thank you to all who helped Wave Robotics recieve this $1,000 grant. It is amazing to see how much the CD community came through to help out a fellow team and it will definately not be forgotten. I look forward to seeing many of you at IRI swapping stories of how you "fed the pig".

Thank you once again.

Jon Stratis

01-06-2011 17:24

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 1064379)

Now, I'm pretty sure this was actually won—and lost for that matter—by programmers and their dueling scripts, so the net loss to society could be smaller than that $2 800 figure. On the other hand, how many of us would be happy at a wage rate of $7.25/h? (I'm thinking that this enlarged the loss to society, given the calibre of participants in this thread.)

Quote:

So next time someone posts asking you to click on something repeatedly or do some other menial task, and the sheer absurdity of it doesn't dissuade you from helping out, either:

Automate it out of a combination of expediency and protest. (The problem-solver's solution.)

While certainly a creative and educational way to tackle the problem, I suggest the next time someone asks you to do something like this, you think of the purpose behind it, the sponsor(s) behind it, and how doing something like that is likely to go completely against the intent and values of the program you are attempting to support.

I certainly encourage people who want to tackle a project like automating something like this to attempt to do so... it's a great educational tool and you'll learn a lot doing it. But to please, please not actually use it.

Big mammoth corporations (Like Activision, for example) have spent millions of dollars combating scripts like those you suggest in their multiplayer games. Pick your favorite online multiplayer game, and think about the repetitive stuff you have to do to improve your character/team/account/whatever. Creating a script to do it for you seems very tempting... but doing so also gives you an unfair advantage over everyone else playing. To equate this to FIRST... it's like a team going into a competition this past year with 6 CIM motors. It's against the rules and gives them an unfair advantage... but if they bury them in the robot so they aren't visible and no one catches them, they win, right?

Tristan Lall

01-06-2011 19:30

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by eagle33199 (Post 1064434)

I really hope not. Multiple people (including people from WAVE) posted here that using such scripts simply isn't right. It's cheating, it's likely against the rules of the program and, if caught, would DQ Wave, and finally it's not GP to try to go around the purpose of something like this.

While certainly a creative and educational way to tackle the problem, I suggest the next time someone asks you to do something like this, you think of the purpose behind it, the sponsor(s) behind it, and how doing something like that is likely to go completely against the intent and values of the program you are attempting to support.

I certainly encourage people who want to tackle a project like automating something like this to attempt to do so... it's a great educational tool and you'll learn a lot doing it. But to please, please not actually use it.

Big mammoth corporations (Like Activision, for example) have spent millions of dollars combating scripts like those you suggest in their multiplayer games. Pick your favorite online multiplayer game, and think about the repetitive stuff you have to do to improve your character/team/account/whatever. Creating a script to do it for you seems very tempting... but doing so also gives you an unfair advantage over everyone else playing. To equate this to FIRST... it's like a team going into a competition this past year with 6 CIM motors. It's against the rules and gives them an unfair advantage... but if they bury them in the robot so they aren't visible and no one catches them, they win, right?

Believe me, I'm aware of the issues surrounding cheating in FIRST, and I make a conscious distinction between the obeying the rules in FIRST (and other sports/games), obeying the law in real-life challenges, and obeying nebulous constraints in pointless activities.

In sports, the rules are obeyed because all the participants are aware of the expectations, and follow them. What ideally results is an entertaining spectacle that is representative of the skill of the competitors. I'd tend to put FIRST in this category.

But you mentioned a computer game, and this lends itself to an exploration of some situations where the logic above doesn't completely apply. Under less-than-ideal circumstances, some people will decide that their own experience may be improved by (for example) automating tasks in an RPG. Insofar as that actually ruins the game for others, it's clearly a breach of the expected standards of conduct. But what if the game has potential, but is flawed enough that the only enjoyable way to play it is by making modifications that are not sanctioned by the free-spending developers/publishers? I'd say there's a situation in which it may not be wrong to break the rules, at least from the perspective of the user's experience. (There are other considerations that enter into that example, like copyright, and maybe this question has the potential to spawn a Chit-Chat thread—for now, I introduce this as evidence that it's important to understand why you're following rules, and to be aware that sometimes breaking a rule can be the right thing to do.)

In real life, the laws are obeyed either out of fear of the consequences, or better still, out of trust that they will ensure a more equitable outcome. The implication here is that laws and customs ought to be beneficial to society as a whole, and not unduly exploitative of any of its members.

In an online piggybank, there may be an implied constraint against feeding it in a scripted manner. On the other hand, this contest, even when played straight, provides neither an entertaining spectacle, nor an equitable result—as I described, it's probably a significant net loss to society, because feeding a piggybank is by definition among the least productive uses of labour. And that's to say nothing of the layers of perversity embodied in choosing the winner based on that process. It is clearly open to manipulation, and the organizers of the contest have failed to impose even modest safeguards against that possibility (they didn't even post a conspicuous notice, as they ought to have if this was important to them). It is not representative of the true needs of the community—at best it encourages the two organizations to mobilize their bases of support, and therefore is little but a comparison of the marketing skills of two worthy organizations. (It's not even a popularity contest, because the competitors self-select the majority of the participants.) In fact, intentionally or not, it allows the granting organization to dodge the (more difficult) question of how to allocate resources based on need or merit, instead substituting a quasi-democratic exercise that resembles a vote, but doesn't really have anything to do with the will of the people.

I'll allow the possibility that the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation is of limited capabilities, and is therefore unable to tackle the problem of allocating resources in a reasonable way. In that case, if the only alternative was not to disburse the funds, then sure, a silly Flash game would be better than nothing. But under those constraints, they could just have given $500 to each candidate organization, and moved on. So I can only hope that they're of the belief that by organizing this song and dance, they can counteract the overall negative effect of the program by drumming up enough support to encourage other sorts of contributions to the team—like someone seeing the pig, and thinking, "I could do this so much better if I just wrote the team a cheque". That's why the real solution is to figure out a way to eliminate the middleman, and get the team some money that isn't tainted by hundreds of wasted person-hours.

So, failing that, because this is obviously not a democratic exercise (unless the franchise is actually supposed to be defined by "how many fake coins you can manually deposit into a virtual pig"), is it actually wrong to use a script to automate the process in favour of the organization you believe most worthy? Aren't we just relying on preconceptions of voting behaviour that don't actually apply to piggybanks? And isn't there room for legitimate protest in response to the absurdity of it all? Perhaps something along the lines of causing someone to realize "these million votes from the same IP address can't be real...maybe we ought to re-think our strategy for disbursing funds".

Now of course, it might be better to simply communicate these concerns directly to the donor, rather than engage in a script war. If they're willing to respond on a policy-based level, then you've won the battle without firing a shot.

There's actually one other interesting fact about this particular contest: if you were depositing scripted coins of your own volition, Wave played no part in causing you to do that (except maybe introducing you to the contest). So if Wave got disqualified because of your actions, it would expose another inequity in the competition's design—punishing an innocent party for the sins of another isn't fair. In fact, if you knew this was a potential consequence, you might deposit millions of coins in the "opponent's" piggybank, in the hopes of getting them disqualified. (Malice aforethought probably makes you complicit in the stupidity, but it's an equivalent demonstration of the flawed system.)

And you know what: getting Wave disqualified early in the contest would probably have been a better overall outcome than letting the contest run its course. That would have avoided the waste of the majority of those person-hours, and guaranteed that Emmeline Cook Elementary School would win $1000. Now that's an insane situation: even if you "cheat", and get caught, and get thrown out, society is better off.

Thermal

01-06-2011 20:21

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

That's some really strong feelings over supposedly using 2800 dollars worth of man hours to produce 1000 dollars for a team. Your argument is so asinine I really cannot begin to fathom why you feel so strongly about it to post essay length rebuttals.

I'll debunk your argument by simply saying that all man-hours are not of equivalent worth, and what people do in their leisure time is their own business.

To finish, i'll leave this here.

"Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!"

Akash Rastogi

01-06-2011 20:48

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 1064446)

And you know what: getting Wave disqualified early in the contest would probably have been a better overall outcome than letting the contest run its course. That would have avoided the waste of the majority of those person-hours, and guaranteed that Emmeline Cook Elementary School would win $1000. Now that's an insane situation: even if you "cheat", and get caught, and get thrown out, society is better off.

Tristan, I usually love your posts, but I cease to understand why you care or what you're mad about.

Let those who "wasted" their time doing this worry about themselves. If you didn't feel the need to contribute to helping a team, why are you posting this?

thefro526

01-06-2011 20:55

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Congrats to Wave on earning the grant.

I'm glad to see the 10 minutes a day I spent dropping coins in didn't go to waste.

Keep up the awesome. :D

DonRotolo

01-06-2011 22:45

Re: Please help Wave Robotics earn $1,000!!!

Sigh. Someone please close this thread.

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