[Official 2007 Game Design] Autonomy And Other Technology Discussions

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by skimoose

After all, we want students, not professionals, programming.

Uhhh, says who?

I am poking at this one intentionally to see if people have really thought through the implications of limiting the construction of the robot to just students, or engineers, or both, and what that really means in terms of the technologies that can be introduced into the game/KitOfParts. I will attempt to keep this discussion on topic by pointing out that based on who you think will be building the robot, the technologies most needed/interesting/challenging will be different.

Put yourself in the position of the people on your team that build your robot, and ask yourself "what technologies can they handle?" Then try and take the viewpoint of a team that does it exactly the opposite way from your team, and ask the same question. What would be most helpful to either group? What capabilities did you really wish you had last year? What technologies would be particularly challenging (and I note that "challenging" is often a very good thing)?

-dave

(by the way, FIRST has been quite clear about the role of engineers and mentors in the development of the robot - read the transcripts of some of Dean's speeches at the early kick-off meetings)