Subject:
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RE: robotica on TLC
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 6 Apr 2001 04:31:06 GMT
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Original-From:
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Russell C. Brown [RR-1] <rcbrown@austin.AVOIDSPAMrr.com>
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Viewed:
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3938 times
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I must sadly agree with you, Steve... Though what Dean suggests would bring
some real technological ingenuity to a drab genre, no fully-autonomous
robotic device is going to beat a human-controlled telerobotic device for
quite some time. [And I will be delighted if someone shows me this message
in 100 years to show how little foresight I had.]
If the idea is to make the science cool, I wish they would actually describe
the machines. BattleBots frustrated me terribly because it was littered with
cheesy commentary but never explained the inventiveness that went into these
contraptions. It was stuff like "contains 2 wheelchair motors" but never how
they were employed--obnoxious because most of the robots have two wheelchair
motors yet they produce very different results.
-----Original Message-----
From: steve [mailto:steve]On Behalf Of Steve Baker
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 10:30 PM
To: Dean Hystad
Cc: lego-robotics@crynwr.com
Subject: Re: robotica on TLC
Dean Hystad wrote:
> I think it would be a much more painful experience to watch autonimous
> robots out there bashing away at each other. Both from an entertainment • and
> philosophical level.
I think that's a bit extreme...but I think it would be quite hard to
televise.
a *real* robotic challenge.
> > From an entertainment standpoint, I imagine it would be painfully dull.
> Given the prize money I can't imagine the quality of the robots would be
> very good. I envision bouts where competators never engage each other, • but
> rather blunder into obstacles as they blindly wander around.
Yes.
Also, you'd need ways to make the two robots mutually detectable - a big
IR emitter on top of each one...but to make it a useful competition, I
imagine you'd also want some way to figure out which way the other bot
was facing.
> > From a philsophical standpoint, is this what you want robots to be doing?
> It's way to Terminator for my tastes. I know that cleaning up hazardous
> waste, freeing humans from performing monotonous repetative tasks, or • doing
> interplanetary exploration are not great entertainment, but they are • better
> science.
I think it's worth-while...it gets kids' interest - it makes science and
engineering seem more "cool" - I think even the non-robotic contests (and
there are three of them on TV now: Robotica, Robot Wars and BattleBots)
have value in that respect. There is no doubt that good engineering
and ingiuity counts for a lot in those contests - sensor technology
and software doesn't - but one out of three ain't bad for starters.
* Robotica is the new one on TLC.
* BattleBots is quite old and runs on Comedy Central.
* Robot Wars is a British series but can be seen in the US on BBC America
and (I think) has been on TLC also.
I didn't see Robotica - but BattleBots is just mindless robot smashing
with an annoying sports commentary style. I quite like Robot Wars though...
it has lots of other contests like an obstacle course, a tug-of-war, a
sumo-like game, robot soccer...and it only *ends* with a mindless violence
round. Quite a few of the Robot Wars "robots" can be seen on BattleBots
too.
Somewhere on slashdot they said that Robot Wars is going to be shown
here in the US on some other channel and that there was going to be
a US version of it...this is definitely a genre that's here to stay.
It's disappointing that they don't spell out clearly the difference
between these things and true robots - but I still find them more
entertaining than a lot of TV sports.
If you actually look at some of the home pages for the "robots" that
compete in these things, you'll see that some of them are beginning
to have computers on-board to assist the human driver.
> But if you really wan't to change this "Battle Bots", "Robotica" trend, • quit
> your whining and enter the fray. An entry with a little on board
> intelligence could probably clean house.
Some of them already have that. Watch the shows carefully and you'll see
that
many of the drivers are using joysticks plugged into LapTops - some are
using
radio modems to communicate with on-board computers.
> Navagation seems to be a problem
> with. Something that makes it easier to move the robot around in more
> controlled manner would be a great benefit. Target recognition and
> automatic deployment of the offensive weapon(s) could also be a big
> advantage.
That's the biggest problem. There is no way to identify the other robot.
Any kind of thermal technique would be wiped out by the hot TV lights,
any kind of image recognition is going to be VERY hard with that huge
audience jumping up and down - camera flashbulbs going off, etc.
What I think it would take would be to add a rule that every robot must
contain a GPS unit and broadcast it's position continually for the other
competitor to pick up.
> And once you started cleaning up, the competition would have to
> follow your lead.
I think it would be almost impossible to beat a human competitor
with the rules the way they are now.
--
Steve Baker HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net>
WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com>
HomePage : http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
Projects : http://plib.sourceforge.net
http://tuxaqfh.sourceforge.net
http://tuxkart.sourceforge.net
http://prettypoly.sourceforge.net
http://freeglut.sourceforge.net
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: robotica on TLC
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| (...) Even without that, it helps. My 10 year old son used to tell the kids at school that he built Lego robots that could really drive around and do things and the other kids would roll their eyes and mouth "Geek...Nerd..." etc. Now they are *VERY* (...) (23 years ago, 6-Apr-01, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: robotica on TLC
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| (...) I agree that fully autonomous robots wouldn't stand much of a chance. But I think it would be possible to create some rather impressive 'bots that used on board intelligence in conjunction with input from a human operator. (...) My favorite (...) (23 years ago, 6-Apr-01, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: robotica on TLC
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| (...) I think that's a bit extreme...but I think it would be quite hard to televise. a *real* robotic challenge. (...) Yes. Also, you'd need ways to make the two robots mutually detectable - a big IR emitter on top of each one...but to make it a (...) (23 years ago, 6-Apr-01, to lugnet.robotics)
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