Programmers: I Have A Challenge For You

[davidthefat]

Another question for y'all: Which way do you make the omni bot "front" the diagonal wheel or the front face?
This way?



or that tilted so the flat side is the front?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Formerly Famous

Okay, so here goes another post for this thread.

I keep seeing people say "I've been in FIRST four year and am now a mentor. I think you are over ambitious high-schoolers. This can't be done. MIT students can't do it. Not in six weeks anyway." Where are your heads? I mean seriously. Think! You call yourself mentors...

There's a difference between ambition and foolhardily charging at a ridiculous idea because you're overconfident in yourself and think anything is possible. I don't think it would be really inspiring to tell my team "Yeah, we can build Super Complex Bot XYZ in a week! Faster than 1114 or 148 ever could! All we gotta do is try and believe!". I guess I'm supposed to inspire students by giving them ridiculous goals and padding their egos.

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

There's a difference between ambition and foolhardily charging at a ridiculous idea because you're overconfident in yourself and think anything is possible. I don't think it would be really inspiring to tell my team "Yeah, we can build Super Complex Bot XYZ in a week! Faster than 1114 or 148 ever could! All we gotta do is try and believe!". I guess I'm supposed to inspire students by giving them ridiculous goals and padding their egos.

Read my sigs... Did Thomas Edison give up after not getting the light bulb after a couple tries?


edit: Im not quitting until I get it... That means even after college I don't get an autonomous robot, I will just join a company that has a same goal as me

[ideasrule]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

There's a difference between ambition and foolhardily charging at a ridiculous idea because you're overconfident in yourself and think anything is possible. I don't think it would be really inspiring to tell my team "Yeah, we can build Super Complex Bot XYZ in a week! Faster than 1114 or 148 ever could! All we gotta do is try and believe!". I guess I'm supposed to inspire students by giving them ridiculous goals and padding their egos.

"Super Complex Bot XYZ" is the understatement of the year. Designing an intelligent autonomous is as hard as, if not harder than, building a nuclear fusion reactor with less than $100 000.

EDIT: I mean one that actually generates electricity instead of consuming it.

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by ideasrule

"Super Complex Bot XYZ" is the understatement of the year. Designing an intelligent autonomous is as hard as, if not harder than, building a nuclear fusion reactor with less than $100 000.

EDIT: I mean one that actually generates electricity instead of consuming it.

In before FIRST competition gets blown up by a faulty nuclear reactor some kid made...

[EthanMiller]

Why not Subversion, CVS, or the like? Google Code, Sourceforge, and the like can be used for free. WindRiver and Netbeans I know have the ability to do SV and CVS, I don't know about LabView.

Also: Who's bot would it run on? It would be a little hard to develop for a robot that you've never seen. Just my opinion, of course, having never developed for an application like that. Also would make testing a small bit harder.

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by EthanMiller

Why not Subversion, CVS, or the like? Google Code, Sourceforge, and the like can be used for free. WindRiver and Netbeans I know have the ability to do SV and CVS, I don't know about LabView.

Now I wouldn't want every robot in the next competition to be fully autonomous too... Whats the point of being Fully autonomous then?

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

If you really think the DGC/DUC task is easier than FRC, I think you may be mistaken. Before I moved to California, I worked at MIT with the DGC team on their continuing autonomous land vehicle research. Unknown terrain, traffic laws, REAL safety, and IC engines are all a bit more complicated than our dinky electric drive bases and arms.

I was referring to the 2004-2005 Grand Challenge. I believe that getting a vehicle autonomously from point A to point B, with no limits on money spent, people involved, and a year to prepare is an easier challenge, and is more straight forward than programming a robot to compete autonomously in an FRC game with up to $5000 worth of materials and sensors, in six weeks.
But that's my opinion.

Originally Posted by Formerly Famous

I keep seeing people say "I've been in FIRST four year and am now a mentor. I think you are over ambitious high-schoolers. This can't be done. MIT students can't do it. Not in six weeks anyway." Where are your heads? I mean seriously. Think! You call yourself mentors... Aren't you supposed to inspire?

Re-read that post, and you'll see that I said "It won't be done".
I would absolutely love it if all of you proved me wrong.


I'm also suggesting that you guys should set more realistic goals given the time, money, manpower, not to mention computing capabilities of the cRio.
A more worthy goal than a fully automated match would be:
1. A fully functioning and planned autonomous
2. A very easy to control robot
3. A mesh of automated functions and a simple user interface.
4. Get more sponsorship for your team, so that it may survive longer.
5. Start another team.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by EthanMiller

... Also: Who's bot would it run on? It would be a little hard to develop for a robot that you've never seen. Just my opinion, of course, having never developed for an application like that. Also would make testing a small bit harder.

Once again - If you pick the 5th Gear simulator, or a non-FIRST game that offers a similar opportunity to write code to control a simulated machine (Alex mentions a tank game) - Then everyone is using the same "machine", your testing is quick and easy anywhere on the planet, and you get multi-machine interactions.

Using some sort of simulator/game would be a wise first step to take on this ambitious undertaking.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Blake

[Chris Hibner]

Here's the thing:

Is anyone really going to be able to accomplish this for next year. Probably not (but it depends on the game). However, a lot of people might get very close, and they're going to learn an insane amount during the process. If you want to try it, give it a go. The best thing is that you'll learn a lot of shortcomings of a lot of sensing technologies, you'll learn how to translate human thought process into logic steps, and you'll come away with a boat-load of knowledge about real world control systems and the typical issues you have to deal with. Try it and have fun!

[Rion Atkinson]

Originally Posted by efoote868

Re-read that post, and you'll see that I said "It won't be done".
I would absolutely love it if all of you proved me wrong.


I'm also suggesting that you guys should set more realistic goals given the time, money, manpower, not to mention computing capabilities of the cRio.
A more worthy goal than a fully automated match would be:
1. A fully functioning and planned autonomous
2. A very easy to control robot
3. A mesh of automated functions and a simple user interface.
4. Get more sponsorship for your team, so that it may survive longer.
5. Start another team.

Think of it like FLL. Those matches are completely autonomous. Are they not? They use nothing but sensors? No, I'm not saying that they should tackle this all at once. I'm just saying that by learning this one thing at a time, it could very well greatly benefit them in the future. If they learn about sensors, they could apply it to the robot next year, allowing the robot to be that much easier to control. Come on, chassis people build chassis in the off-season. What do programming guys do? They program.

Now yes, i would suggest that you first program a two minutes autonomous that just involves a empty field with the game pieces. Ones you have that down. I would then add in the chance of other robots. Just a thought.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

Another question for y'all: Which way do you make the omni bot "front" the diagonal wheel or the front face?
This way?



or that tilted so the flat side is the front?

I'd tell you that robot has no front, and you should program it as such.

[theprgramerdude]

Originally Posted by EthanMiller

Why not Subversion, CVS, or the like? Google Code, Sourceforge, and the like can be used for free. WindRiver and Netbeans I know have the ability to do SV and CVS, I don't know about LabView.

Also: Who's bot would it run on? It would be a little hard to develop for a robot that you've never seen. Just my opinion, of course, having never developed for an application like that. Also would make testing a small bit harder.

IMO, I was thinking if this was a group project, we'd just agree on a set design before starting. Everyone already has a fully (I hope) functioning robot, the only difference would be the exact specs (wheels, drivetrain, minor issues that modular code would easily adapt too).

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by theprgramerdude

IMO, I was thinking if this was a group project, we'd just agree on a set design before starting. Everyone already has a fully (I hope) functioning robot, the only difference would be the exact specs (wheels, drivetrain, minor issues that modular code would easily adapt too).

Thats why you have multiple programmers on your team... I can't say I can trust them with any code I write...

[Radical Pi]

Originally Posted by efoote868

I'd tell you that robot has no front, and you should program it as such.

I'd tell you that front is whichever way the camera is pointing.