Subject:
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Interactive human-controlled bots
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 23 Jul 1999 20:57:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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722 times
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At a local toystore last night, they had a big setup of Rokenbok (a
pseudo-LEGO-compatible construction toy system) with a bunch of radio-
controlled dump-trucks, ramps, bridges, balls to move around, and so forth.
OK, Rokenbok certainly leaves a lot to be desired as a construction toy
(compared to LEGO), but the Cool Thing was that each of the trucks was
interactively controllable via a Nintendo-like joypad -- forward, reverse,
left, right, and four action buttons (up/down on the front loader, etc).
The first thing to do when you walk up to the area is to try picking up a
few of the balls with the scoop and dropping them in the hopper (or one of
many various ball-related tasks). But heck, that gets boring pretty
quickly...it's all thinking and no adrenaline. :)
What's fun is when there are two or more people there each controlling a
separate truck -- and trying to knock the living daylights out of the other
"player." It's tricky, but not impossible, to actually flip another truck
on its side, rendering it "dead." The motors are fairly strong.
I kind of think of this as a sort of wrestling, where you try to pin the
other guy by flipping him. I think there are some species of turtles that
actually do this in real-life -- they have a special protrusion beneath
their necks for flipping other turtles in mating-ritual combat.
Anyway --
I really can't get too excited about programmable bricks doing super-cool
thinking-type combat yet when the sensors and onboard chipsets are still so
primitive as what the RCX has.
OTOH, if there were a system which directly connected a host computer's
keyboard to the RCX via a dedicated continuous link, and if the key-commands
mapped to convenient motor controls, then I bet some really fun interactive
combat stuff could be done... (Has anything like this been done yet?)
I wanna be able to play a game where I knock the other player off onto its
back -- or off a cliff, into a steaming tar-pit -- in order to gain a point.
Or maybe sever its IR link by climbing on top of it. :)
I always liked the "Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots" commercials when I was a kid,
but the problem I have with those is that they're in permanent fixed
proximity to one another. CyberSlam has the opposite problem: it's too
mobile and therefore too easy to evade the opponent.
What kinds of things could be done relatively easily with a human-controlled
mechanism, but would be very, very difficult as autonomous "thinking" bots?
Two RCX's:
- Interesting combat matches (natch :)
- One-on-one robo-basketball
- Brick launcher: try to hit the opponent's fortress or bot across the room
One RCX:
- Indoor 9-hole miniature golf
- Billiards or pool on a real pool-table
- Cat toy: know when to run, when to hide, and when to attack
- Maze runner: navigate maze in shortest time without bumping into a wall
Just some food for thought...
--Todd
p.s. David Chen reported in January that he was able to reliably achieve a
20-ft RCX IR transmission distance: http://www.lugnet.com/robotics/?n=2520
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Interactive human-controlled bots
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| I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard that you can make your RCX program respond to three of the buttons on the RCX remote control. You can also (if you need more than three commands) use a second RCX as a remote control. I've run across a (...) (25 years ago, 26-Jul-99, to lugnet.robotics)
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