Are FIRST robots actually robots?

[EHaskins]

The other day I had a conversation with some people after giving a demonstration of our robot, and they said that if someone drove it, it wasn't a robot. They felt that the only difference between our robot and an RC car was that ours costs a lot more, and if our "robot" was a robot, then why not your car or even a microwave. Your car does more without you knowing than most FIRST robots, and all you need to do for a microwave is press start.

My questions are:

Does the 10s autonomous mode make it a robot?

Does the fact that its for a competition make it a robot?

Or, are we just making expensive RC cars?

If none of these are true what do we spend 6 weeks doing?


I was curious what other people thought of this.

[Cory]

We're making expensive RC cars that slowly are becoming real robots with the introduction of more autonomous challenges.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

A robot is an electro-mechanical or bio-mechanical device or group of devices that can perform autonomous or preprogrammed tasks.

So Cory is right.

[Adam Y.]

Whoops.... Mike all ready pointed out the definition. Anyway, they are definately robots.

i believe yes. why? it is a mahine designed to complete a task without direct physical contact from an outside source ie a human. so based on this an rc car is a robot lacking in manipulator.

No. The definition is lacking. Teleoperated robots are capable of making decisions and doing actions independent of the operator.

[Taylor]

If in fact we are not building robots, does that make our work any less important or inspirational?

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by boiler

If in fact we are not building robots, does that make our work any less important or inspirational?

Agreed... Mike is right on here.

I've talked to various people at demos and such who think FIRST is no big deal because they think that FRC robots are not real robots. After talking a few minutes about autonomous modes and some of the programming and sensing challenges involved, some of these people still think that FRC 'bots are not robots. Then, I mention the whole mentoring and inspiration part of FIRST.

At that point, if they STILL want to argue that FRC does not involve robots, but rather remote-controlled devices, I agree with them and hope they don't ever get involved. Mabye I'm quick to judge here, but if someone is that hung up on a simple definition and can't see the point of the program, then we're probably better off without them.

AB

[Jack Jones]

What’s in a name? That which we call a robot, by any other word would smell of magic smoke.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

What’s in a name? That which we call a robot, by any other word would smell of magic smoke.

If it smells of magic smoke, it is a robot? I would think if it smells like magic smoke it used to be a robot.

Wetzel

[GaryVoshol]

FLL's got robots!

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

FLL's got robots!

Yeah, they do. No teleoperation there. Well, maybe a little bit of dead reckoning, or point-and-shoot.

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by Richard

Yeah, they do. No teleoperation there. Well, maybe a little bit of dead reckoning, or point-and-shoot.

Because Lego robots don't turn into a massive disaster if you misprogram it.

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

FLL's got robots!

Thats true.

Does it make sense that the FLL robots made mostly by middle school students are autonomous, but the FRC robots, build by high school students and real engineers, aren't?

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

Thats true.

Does it make sense that the FLL robots made mostly by middle school students are autonomous, but the FRC robots build by high school students and real engineers aren't?

As Woodie or Dave said at kickoff a couple years ago, "We know autonomous is hard - that's why we make FLL do it."

[Imajie]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

Does it make sense that the FLL robots made mostly by middle school students are autonomous, but the FRC robots, build by high school students and real engineers, aren't?

You kind of need to think about the games that each plays. FLL plays games by themselves while FRC bots compete both with and against other bots.
Programming autonomous for just your own bot is one thing, making it have to interact with the 5 other bots on the field is another.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

Does it make sense that the FLL robots made mostly by middle school students are autonomous, but the FRC robots, build by high school students and real engineers, aren't?

Let's see how well those FLL robots can do autonomously when there's 5 other robots on the field, and game objects which roll around and are effectively in random locations all the time...