5th Gear AI

[gblake]

Sweet!

Implicit in what I am doing with the AI, is the notion of building interfaces that let students write their own code to extend/improve/expand 5th Gear, without having to fool with all the plumbing (unless they really, really like "plumbing").

If the AI experiment is a success, It should lead to opening several more interfaces for outside/independent Java Classes (GUI graphics, driver control changes, two drivers, real humans controlling human players, new physics models, new graphics models, referees/penalties, full clients or servers, internet play, alternatives to PhysX, etc.), and for C# equivalents.

Over time, continued success could lead to multiple partial and full 5th Gear implementations, that would all adhere to a single set of interface specs and could be mixed and matched to create more than one kind of simulation.

That sort of thing sounds easy on the surface, but it is darned hard to accomplish in reality. That's OK though, so long as we don't frustrate ourselves by biting off more than we can chew at any one time, because learning what is hard and what is easy is part of STEM robotics.

So, "Yes", let's have lots of Gear Boxes and other contributions. We can keep the grand vision in mind, but let's also remember to eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Blake