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Unread 29-01-2008, 01:54
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Re: Robocoach signals loophole?

Quote:
Originally Posted by eagle33199 View Post
I thought of an interesting "loophole" in the rules...

A remote like the Logitech Harmony series allows you to program some of the buttons on the computer. Now, the GDC wants you to have 1 button push correspond to one action, with a max of 4, and they don't want you to encode longer messages by pushing multiple buttons, which rules out the idea someone had of using encoded messages to help stave off interference from other teams.

But what if you programmed a remote to send multiple number messages for each push? You only use 4 buttons, and those 4 buttons only activate 4 activities on the robot. each single button press leads to one action on the robot. But you're sending a string of signals with each press to avoid interference with other robocoaches.

From update 3, this may be allowed (i think we'll draft a question to the GDC about it, so i'm not really looking for approval here, just opinions):

So one button push transmits one message, and multiple button pushes don't encode other messages... I don't know, what do you guys think? Am i going out on a limb here?
If you are using a standard commercial IR remote control, you are already doing this.

When you mash the "3" button on an IR remote, the device does not just send "3" out over the IR LED. That information is actually buried inside a larger packet of information that is sent each time a button is pushed. The packet will typically contain (as a minimum) synch pulses, the target device address, an encoded version of the data, and termination pulses.

Depending on the device being used, the actual "data" content can be a small fraction of the total transmitted packet. For example, if the remote uses the Control-S protocol (used by Sony - the two most common protocols are from Sony and NEC), you get a header pulse, a seven-bit data block, a five- eight- or thirteen-bit target block, and a trailing pulse. Of the data block, only 10 of the 256 seven-bit permutations correspond to the numbers on the remote. All the rest of the packet space is used by the remote to encode other information that is used by the receiver to decode and direct the data.

So what is being proposed as an advantageous "loophole" is, in fact, already in place and the rules support and accommodate it.

-dave



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