coolness factor

[PhillyRobotics]

hey..me and a mentor (actually, just a college student who thinks hes an engineer) were discussing the coolness factor, we defined it as the amount of things your robot can do to the coolness of your robot. IE: If your bot can grab 2 goals and load balls into them and your bot has like aluminum wheels in the shape of some ghetto rims; you have a 2:1 coolness ratio. I was just wondering if other teams had coolness ratios and what they think of function over fashion.

Thanx for any help
Shrey
Team 920
Head of Drive

P.S. The example i used is not of our robot.

[Jordan A.]

"The only unexcusable sin is sacrificing functionability for fashion" - Book of Jordan Chapter 3 Verse 14

*cough* iMac *cough*

I think fashion is awsome, as long as you dont sacrifice things for it.

[Adrian Wong]

What's functionability is lost in the iMac? A speedy G4 processor, decent videocard, SuperDrive (!!), and LCD screen.

It's running on par with some low-end PowerMac G4s.

[Jordan A.]

Adrian, while I admit I may be uninformed with the mac's I am speaking in respect to (for the lack of a better word) regular PC's

I have a hard time seeing the posibility of any upgrades, and I doubt any by the end user would be permitted by warantee if they were allowed.

Casing seems restricting. I bet the air flow in that thing is horrible, all because they wanted it to look cool.

Again Im probably uninformed and wouldnt be able to make a really good argument on the case.

[Adrian Wong]

Well, delving into Apple strategy for a moment, I believe they're positioning the iMac for a consumer computer that has no upgrade option in mind. A customer that purchases an iMac most likely would not be someone that performs upgrades to their computers in the first place. Apple does have the PowerMac line, which follows a more traditional PC route that allows for upgrades to the computer. With that said, you can still upgrade the Airport card and memory for the iMac.

About the casing, I'm not sure on that issue either. I'm actually tempted to side with you on this issue. I remember several articles about how the Cube (similar small form factor, fan-less) had trouble with heat dissipation.

Now, to return this thread back to its rightful owner ... Our robot has an omnidirectional holonomic drive platform. We'll just be scooting circles around the field. (However, I have a very strong feeling that it's going to break down, but we're trying out a lot of new ideas this year.) It'll be really cool if it works and still moderately neat if it doesn't.

[Kai Zhao]

My idea is probably legal:

Have a LCD screen (from Digi-key) mounted in your custom PCB board-box with a hole cut through it. Also add another Basic Stamp 1 in order to drive the LCD (at a low cost). Then drive up to your opponent's windows (with a goal + balls attached) and write "you will lose". For an extra effect, add in a piezo-electric speaker that will beep to get their attention.

Plus, could you have a really really really powerful Infrared LED that would send every Palm OS device in the arena a memo?

Add that all onto a robot that can forklift two others at once and you'll get an very cool 'bot.

[Lloyd Burns]

You need to write "Resistance is Futile" on the screen, while intoning on a speaker "You will be assimilated", which will strike fear into the heart of any robot you come upon.

It would probably not be considered gracious professionalism to run around, arms outstretched, buzzing the words "Exter-min-ate, exter-min-ate" like a Dalek. Dr Which ?

[Jon Abad]

Originally posted by Jordan A.
Adrian, while I admit I may be uninformed with the mac's I am speaking in respect to (for the lack of a better word) regular PC's

I have a hard time seeing the posibility of any upgrades, and I doubt any by the end user would be permitted by warantee if they were allowed.

Casing seems restricting. I bet the air flow in that thing is horrible, all because they wanted it to look cool.

Again Im probably uninformed and wouldnt be able to make a really good argument on the case.

I respond because i need a break from working on our robot... the memory and airport can be upgraded as previously mentioned and yes the imac is designed for folks that typically don't worry about upgradability and etc.

But, in their defense, they do have a fan and they did worry about heating currents and purposely made it such that the fan would only make less noise than the hard drive when fully sped up.
--
And in the context of this thread... our bot might have a cape. who knows!

[Kris Verdeyen]

The "Coolness factor" or CF ratio, as it's known in the industry, was first discovered in 1986 by Ivanov Coolness of the Moscow Institute for the Study of Engineering and Robotics. Coolness noted that some of the robots he and his colleagues built were beter recieved than others. Due to the bread shortage, and a lack of proper funding to actually build robots, Coolness decided to concentrate on this rather mundane research exercise instead of building a "Capitalist Killer" robot, which was, strictly speaking, his charge.

Coolness determined that, for any given robot, some people, opon seeing this robot, would exclaim "Whoa!", or in Russian "Whoalev!", and some others would say "ehh." (which is the same in both languages). Some others would have neither of these reactions. All that Coolness did was take the ratio of the "Whoa"'s to "ehh"s, and he arrived at the CF ratio:

CF = (# of Whoas)/(# of Ehhs)

Of course, a robot's absolute CF ratio is impossible to determine, because it would require showing everyone on Earth the robot, but a good estimate can be made by letting 10-20 volunteers see the machine in action.