Robotics is a cool field; however, the chance of me going into that field is very slim. I will most likely stay in the computer science field and do programming or IT stuff. I know a lot of people that feel the same way.
I think there is a lack of programming competition in FIRST. Yeah Yeah, there is the PBasic language that we all use to program the robot. I was thinking more along the lines of desktop programming. Like, you have to create an application does “this” and “this” yada yada. There would have to be regulations, but I would hope that you could be able to use any language and IDE you want. The apps could be judged on UI design, speed, and reliability.
I don’t know, its just an idea. I just thought it was odd that there is a 3D Animation Competition in a robotics league, but nothing to do with application/desktop programming or certain computer science fields.
i think most teams are struggling to finish the robot/animation/other on time as it is; adding some kind of programming competition into this equation would probably dramatically reduce the quality of the controls software, the animation, and probably everything else
Well, not every team has to do it. Maybe teams would rather do a program competition than a 3d animation. Who knows? Better to have more choices than no choices.
*Originally posted by piotrm *
**i think most teams are struggling to finish the robot/animation/other on time as it is; adding some kind of programming competition into this equation would probably dramatically reduce the quality of the controls software, the animation, and probably evetything else **
I agree with this. I don’t really understand how a ‘desktop’ programming competition would work though.
Robotics is an example of how programming can be applied. PBASIC is also the language of the Basic Stamp microcontroller, which is provided by Innovation First. If for instance, an object-oriented language is used (which would potentially offer a more useful programming experience), a new controller unit would have to be put in place…
*Originally posted by gliebowitz *
**I agree with this. I don’t really understand how a ‘desktop’ programming competition would work though.
Robotics is an example of how programming can be applied. PBASIC is also the language of the Basic Stamp microcontroller, which is provided by Innovation First. If for instance, an object-oriented language is used (which would potentially offer a more useful programming experience), a new controller unit would have to be put in place… **
What’s he’s trying to say, is like w/ the website thing. That’s not robotics-related technically. av11d is just giving an idea to expand it, not to replace anything. Sounds like a good/great idea though to. I’d be up for it.
i have a nice, easy suggestion, that most teams should be doing anyways.
as several topics in this forum have mentioned, there are some people trying to develop dashboard programs. most are rather generic, not much to them. my team, on the other hand, tends to make dashboards that are specific to each robot, which means that a new one is developed each year.
we put lots of time (well, we did it on a coach bus, but it still took some time :p) to make our dashboard program this year, and we tried to impress the judges with it, but they seemed to only show a passing interest, as in “oh, hey, what’s that on the laptop? oh cool.” it’d be nice for efforts in programming would be recognized more, as it is just as hard as actually building the robot (especially when it’s late at night and you don’t know why everything isn’t working :p).
*Originally posted by av11d *
**
I don’t know, its just an idea. I just thought it was odd that there is a 3D Animation Competition in a robotics league, but nothing to do with application/desktop programming or certain computer science fields.
Good idea? Bad idea? Comments appreciated **
I think that it is a great idea. I believe that a comp. directed toward the programmers on the team would be a wonderful choice. They have the anime and chairmans, theres always room for a programming comp.
Sounds like a great idea. Perhaps they should consolidate all of the topics into a general media category and have the animation, programming, information, etc. subgroups. I do see it being somewhat difficult for them to come up with a different objective each year, so just the most creative and practical ideas would get “points”.
Well first we need to find out what all the teams think of it in general… then if we have an overall approval then i say we go to FIRST and say " hey we would like to add a programming compatition, we have compatitions for a lot of other stuff why not programming?" Pitch to them the idea and what the regulations and rules might be… then hopefully it will take off from there.
Sounds good, i’m in! Heh. There could even be sub catergories like, general desktop applications, mobile device, and even like, custom hardware (including the driver dev.) or something.
There could be diffrent choices like, the desktop, hardware, and other aplacations. Based on what language you used had a diffrent set of rules and reg. to amke it more interesting. teams would have the choice to enter or not, they sent a package of rules and reg. they began working on it during the season. It would be somthing new and fun (well for me) for the teams to try to accoplish. now we just need to see what the general mood of the teams twards this…
I know this isn’t exactly what you were looking for, nor does it have anything to do with FIRST, but Topcoder has a very well designed, free, weekly on-line programming competition. You are given 75 minutes to write three functions that return the requested values. You can compete in Java, C++ C# or VB and are scored based on time used coding each problem and the difficulty of the functions.
They also have component competitions where you can win money by designing an entire component. This is closer to what you are describing as you are given a week(I believe) to create the program and each competitor’s program is given a score by a panel of judges based upon coding ability and functionality.
I hope you find this helpful.
P.S. If they ask for the member that referred you(I’m not sure if they still do), my user name is j_johnso
Thanks for the help… its some of what were are looking for. I have posted a Thread under the FIRST General Forum area about a programming competition. Im trying to find what the teams have to say about this so if we have enough support we could send the idea to FIRST and maybe next year we will have a programming competition.
Please go to the Thread on the FIRST General Forum area about this and vote. The more votes for yes we have the better chance we have.
