Subject:
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Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Wed, 9 Mar 2005 23:31:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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3324 times
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In lugnet.robotics, Steve Hassenplug wrote:
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Dean touched on another good reason. Its much easier to judge GUI programs
(Robolab & RIS) than text-based languages. In some cases, the judges are NOT
programmers, or engineers, they are volunteers, who may have been trained
earlier that day.
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First off, judging the technical merit of a program of any significant degree of
complexity by simply looking at the code (be it text-based or graphical) for 20
minutes or less is nonsense. The only judging of that sort that ought to occur
should be based on the teams presentation of the program logic to the judge in
conjunction with a review of the code led by the team members.
It is *far* easier to look at a text-based program, however, and make sense of
what it means and whether it is technically excellent than it is to look at a
connected series of tiny icons with cryptic numbers and symbols next to them (or
embedded within them). A volunteer judge would have to know what each image
represented and what its semantics are before they could make any sense of a
graphical program.
This, for example,
vs
// make our press count global so we can access it from BricxCC
int PressCount;
task beeper()
{
// beep forever
while (true)
{
PlayTone(440, 50);
Wait(100);
}
}
task main()
{
// configure our sensor as a touch sensor
SetSensor(SENSOR_1,SENSOR_TOUCH);
// start our beeper task
start beeper;
// check for 6 touch sensor presses
while (PressCount <= 6)
{
// a press == pressed then not pressed
until(SENSOR_1);
until(!SENSOR_1);
// increment our press count
PressCount++;
}
// now stop beeping
stop beeper;
}
or (as an interesting alternative):
// make our press count global
int PressCount;
#define PressEvent 1 // define a meaningful name for event #1
task PressWatcher()
{
while (true)
{
// wait for a press event to occur
monitor (EVENT_MASK(PressEvent))
{
Wait(100);
}
catch
{
// increment our press count when it does
PressCount++;
}
}
}
task main()
{
// initialize our press count to zero
PressCount = 0;
// configure our sensor as a touch sensor
SetSensor(SENSOR_1,SENSOR_TOUCH);
// configure the press event
SetEvent(PressEvent, SENSOR_1, EVENT_TYPE_PRESSED);
// start our watcher task
start PressWatcher;
// beep until 6 press events have occurred
while (PressCount <= 6)
{
PlayTone(440, 50);
Wait(100);
}
}
A brief glance at either of the two text programs makes it clear (with or
without comments) that the goal is to make the RCX beep continually until the
touch sensor on port 1 is pressed 6 times.
Without additional information can anyone here tell in 10 seconds what the
Robolab program does? I highly doubt it.
John Hansen
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Message has 3 Replies: | | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| (...) mini-rant Wow, you're not kidding. Why in the world are we being required to learn a second drawn hieroglyphic language much like ancient Egyptian when we have evolved a much simpler use of an alphabet of letters from which to construct words (...) (20 years ago, 10-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics, FTX)
| | | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| On Wed, March 9, 2005 6:31 pm, John Hansen said: (...) But, without knowing what the icons mean, you came pretty close to knowing what the program does. I would argue that it would be much easier for most kids to explain 14 icons than 30-40 lines of (...) (20 years ago, 10-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| (...) Complete agreement. But it is unfortunately not the case. (...) Actually, they would only need to move the curser over any symbols they were unfamiliar with. The contextual help will spell it out for them. (...) Actually yes. And it is not (...) (20 years ago, 10-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: FLL not allowing NQC; Mindscript is allowed
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| On Wed, March 9, 2005 3:46 pm, Mark Tarrabain said: (...) Dean touched on another good reason. It's much easier to judge GUI programs (Robolab & RIS) than text-based languages. In some cases, the judges are NOT programmers, or engineers, they are (...) (20 years ago, 9-Mar-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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