Subject:
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the BEST two days of my life.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto
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Date:
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Sun, 14 Sep 2003 03:45:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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601 times
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(LONG)
Sure, the day I got married was neat.....
Watching the Birth of my daughter was way cool....
BUT Between Fridays NG posts and all the other surprise(s) of
today...... I just have to say that this day will go down in infamy.
not only did I achieve a personal victory condition, BUT that Punk Kid
(tm) showed up along with a few dozen of his friends.
I'm torn. do I remain humble, or do I gloat and swell my already large
ego so that no one will be able to use rtlToronto NG for anything.
decisions, decisions.
(gloat on)
Well, it looks like its been many hours since the end of R14 (the rice
game) and I've waited long enough for others to post results. Clearly I
have silenced the group. So I'll talk about the GREAT day.
it all started when Bruce (we all remember Bruce right?)
Bruce has been saying things like this all month:
http://news.lugnet.com/org/ca/rtltoronto/?n=8984
"........Cocky son-of-a-gun when you think your ahead. Enjoy it for
now...Sep 13 will be
a different story!"
and this:
http://news.lugnet.com/org/ca/rtltoronto/?n=8942
'.........I will have a robot by Sep 13 and it will kick your butt."
you get the idea. I could go on, but unlike Steve H (aka. Mr. No life) I
refuse to spend 2 1/2 hours researching lugnet to mock people. (for me
its 15 minutes tops)
anyway, Bruce shows up with his "robot" and tells everyone that he has
to add a few parts, add some code and it will be ready. by 12 noon, he
packed up his "parts" and sealed it in his modified Tupperware container
and called it quits. for the record, bruce has now NOT even entered a
robot for our two hardest games (project X, and Rice Picker)
I still have a personal victory condition. it was a simple one. "one
brick more than bruce" with him out of the game. this should be
easier.
This is where my day started to get interesting. something ~magical~
happened. bruce was sitting forlorn beside me, his half of the table
was empty. the Punk Kid(tm) shows up with a few of his friends and
point to a robot and ask bruce about it. they pointed to the base of my
old king of the hill robot; which I had brought as a back up robot in
case anyone wanted to enter a mean-y robot like a lid to prevent anyone
else from getting blocks, or .... you get the idea.
So Punk Kid(tm) turns to bruce, asks about ~MY~ old robot, and (this is
the part I still cant understand) claims to tell the kid that HE made
it, and look how it climbs up stuff. (its original purpose) the kids
actually LIKE the robot, and run off to play with it.
2 things just happened.
1. that Punk Kid (and all his friends) just said my robot was COOL
2. Bruce just took my robot and claimed it was HIS.
did he not discuss this here:
http://news.lugnet.com/org/ca/rtltoronto/?n=8942
"...........Should anyone feel like they want to bid on Chris's ideas
for a robot...I'd like to say congratulations, you have officially sunk
as low as you can go!"
BUT wait.... theirs MORE.........
those Punk Kid(s) (tm) run off with the hill climber, and start to put
it through its paces. trying to make sure they don't destroy the thing,
I follow them. they did something even I was surprised at. they ran the
robot straight at a wall, and.... it started to climb it higher then I
thought it would before it toppled backwards on itself.
the kids LOVED it. this is where the day got really good. that Punk
Kid, and several of his friends say this, and I QUOTE
"hey mister, we want to be on YOUR team!!"
just to make sure every blue shirted RTLer in the room heard, the kids
said it a few more times.
Life is good. it was also a nice day because many respected people of
rtlToronto complimented me on my rice robot. I'm sure many of them will
NOT post here and retype what they said in person. BUT you know who you
are, and I remember what you said.
on to the game.
we had 5 official entries.
Rob (and team)
Wayne
Ka-On
Me
Greg H.
people who showed up with ~something~
Tryven - a nice base and a prayer that someone would show up with an
arm.
Bruce - a nice collection of plotter parts.
Jeff V W - a laptop with Lego Train Track designer (and that's it)
John G - a RC car with 2 speed selectable transmissions
people who showed up to watch
Iain
Derek
Calum
Ivan
Mario D
Oliver
Doc
and a whole lot of general spectators.
RTLer's who never even showed up
Trogdor
Dave K
Jeff E.
the robots:
Rob brought a fantastic articulated arm with a scoop. if anyone from
John Deer or CAT need a nice guy to automate your back hoe, Rob's your
man. this thing was just nice to watch. it was efficient, scrapped the
top well, and he won ALL or most(?) of his match's. Rob came in
First. he had an on board sorter that as a final insult would "plop"
bad bricks onto the opponents side, and graciously back away as a final
taunt.
Wayne, was the second person to show up in the morning, and helped me
hump that stupid heavy 2 sheets of ply playfield down a flight and a
half of stairs. then he dropped off his robot. it was this HUGE beast
of fear. if it was made by lego and had a hole or stud, I think Wayne
had it on his bot. like rob, Wayne had an arm that would scoop up
bricks, but waynes secret weapon was this "vibrator" attached to the end
of the arm that would allow the scoop to jiggle into the rice.It was
just the nicest thing to see. his on board sorter was.... well, all I
remember was this flat surface that was a solid grey ~thing~ that had on
the bottom of it the neatest rube goldberg sorting mechanism. I think
it was Rob who said it was powered by a polarity switch that Wayne
constantly rotated to get a back and forth washing machine motion.
Wayne (and I) tied for second.
ME. I had a very simple design. I took 2 separately powered counter
rotating treads and placed then side by each, vertically. as they
counter rotated, it would "suck" itself into the rice, and over the
course of the day managed to pull up a brick. (once in actual game,
and twice in practice runs)
a light sensor at the "top" would detect the brick, and choose to
process it, or dump it back into the pit. this was placed on a long
arm, and pivoted with 2 turntables (one on either side). this arm was
placed on a simple base with treads. all powered with 2 RCXen.
Ka-On. had this robot that is beyond description. the only way to
describe it would be to have you picture a four petal flower that has
all petals close to the centre at the same time. inside this EOAT he
placed a light sensor for in pit processing. I'm sorry Ka-On, but I
never manage to spend enough time learning about your robots.
Greg. Dear sweet, simple Greg.
Even though Greg's pay check has a lego logo in the corner, (sometimes.)
greg did not follow all the rules. never the less his robot was more
substantial than anything Iain, Calum, John, Ivan or Jeff brought so we
were more than willing to let him play in the rice. he had a 6" high
platform that delivered a double wide tread "base" into the pit, where
like the mars pathfinder robot, would extend a row of spikes into the
rice, and lift them back up.
to be fair. Greg did read/hear that Calum had casually discussed a
simple version of the game where the idea was to just get ANY brick.
period. if i recall. his robot did.
Over all it was a very fun day. all the "blue shirts" (re: rtl geeks)
had a nice big heaping serving of in your face humble pie. thanks to
that Punk Kid(tm) the day was even better than I could have hopped.
to recap.
1. I built a robot. Bruce did not.
2. my robot did get ONE brick more than Bruce.
3. I tied for second, and seeing as Rob always wins first, second is
just fine by me.
4. that Punk Kid (tm) thought robots I built were cool.
5. kevin C. has said nice things about my code.
yep. all in all. a VERY good weekend.
Chris
"It is a very clever strategy IMHO, and I applaud Chris for thinking of
it." K.C.
So, Steve, tell me all about your sumo game? let me guess. you had a
robot (or 5) that drove forward and pushed other robots out of the ring.
{pause}
e-yep. sounds like fun.
;)
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: the BEST two days of my life.
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| (...) How in the world you think that you can gloat escapes me. Let’s see, if we add up all the blocks that your robot extracted yesterday that would be...let me count on my fingers...ONE...(and I’m sure you know which finger I’m holding up at this (...) (21 years ago, 14-Sep-03, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
| | | Re: the BEST two days of my life.
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| (...) I hope Kate never reads rtl... (...) I thought you wanted to beat Wayne: (URL) realize you tied with him, but for that to happen the scoring system must have been seriously flawed. Its just not right for your robot that has a success rate of 1 (...) (21 years ago, 14-Sep-03, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
| | | Re: the BEST two days of my life.
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| (...) Are you serious? All this crap... All the talking... All the work, and your robot pulled ONE BRICK out of the rice? Man, your life really is sorry. (...) Well, for starters, the event is coming up this weekend. I assume that means you didn't (...) (21 years ago, 15-Sep-03, to lugnet.org.ca.rtltoronto)
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