Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #02752



To: beam@corp.sgi.com (mailing list)
From: Benjamin Edward Hitchcock beh01@uow.edu.au
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 15:41:29 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Contest (mailing robots in)


I think the idea of a mail-in contest would be great. It takes care of
two factors:

1) reliability. I don't know about your robots, but mine are usually
pretty temperamental, and only work with a bit of coaxing. It takes a
pretty good engineer to make a robot that will work first time, every
time, after being shipped halfway across the world! It would bring
reliability to being a very critical part of the design, instead of being
relegated to the back of your mind. If we are to design robots that have
half a chance of surviving in a small portion of the real world, they have
to be halfway reliable.

2) Fudgery. I'm not saying that BEAMers fudge their results, but a number
of them have experience with science experiments, and as everyone knows
the only way to get them to work is to fudge them. I think most people
only publish their results that reflect favourably on the robot, and
'forget' to include the time their robot got stuck in that curious 130
degree wedge near the kitchen sink that managed to elude both their touch
sensors....

I think this sort of competition would make people engineer and refine
their designs a lot more than any 'test yourself' competition could ever
hope to achieve.

And it would be fair.

Just my thoughts,
Ben

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