You could learn a lot though because these basic problems if solved could advance robotics tremendously.

" The samples range from a relatively large 8 cm high white cylinder to a small red hockey puck that lies very low in the grass and is nearly invisible until the robot is a few feet away. The robot must run completely autonomously from beginning to end and the judges go to great lengths to ensure that no team can remotely control their robot. "

@mtiberia .... I would love to do something like that.... Pie in the sky maybe... I built this a few months ago... Steers just like the mars rovers (4 wheeled steering) and has a crude form of Rocker Bogie suspension... I am sure I could upscale it (with better wheels, motors and add an arm) and have you, Rich and David collaborate to write software for it...

Wow that is really cool !

I think competitions are good and push people. It just think that there should be multiple competitions with the same robot and not just one.

IMHO, robotics will be pushed further by having competitions like this but with more completely different events that require the use of the same robot. If you tell a programmer that they are going to program a robot to hit a golf ball, that is all you will get. If you tell a programmer that you want a robot that can play a game of golf, it might not be completed, but you will get far further.

Programmers work off of a defined set of requirements for the most part. The good programmers go far beyond this set of defined requirements and develop something really useful not only in this area, but that could be reused in other areas. I manage a lot of programmers and have been one for the last 20+ years. It is interesting to watch them work. Code reviews of their work helps me know how they think. I like it when one of them comes to me and says "I want to rewrite project X" because I know that they are continuing to think about how to improve the project even after the project is complete. This is a good programmer. I dont always say yes because of the other projects that are coming along, but I like it.

Asking a robot to do a specific task or series of tasks is too limiting which is what these competitions promote and these robots are then scrapped for other builds or are left in a closet at a school. I want someone to grab what has already been done by the past programmer and rewrite it or add to it to make the robot continue in its usefulness. Maybe the first competition is good, but don't make a separate robot for next years competition. Use the first one and expand on its capabilities. This is how robotics will be able to advance. One trick pony's may impress at first, but quickly are turned to glue.

Thanks... The design actually works very well. It handles rough surfaces almost as well as smooth and it can rotate in place due to the 4 wheeled steering... So it is highly maneuverable... I would just need to use bearing blocks for servo mounts, stronger gear motors, larger wheels (mars rover type)... I also need to improve the rocker bogie articulating chassis... And of course an arm...

@ d.cochran

Do you believe it will be possible for a program to rewrite itself and adapt to new situations or is it the computational hardware that needs to change ?

What is possible is for the conditions to be stored in a database and then called based on the situation. These are more rules than rewriting the code. The code would look at a rule, and then perform an action based on the rule. The rule could be modified by the code based on the result of the action performed. We do this for a lot of things including parsing documents provided to our company. A core set of rules would be coded, and then there would be an adapted rules table that would be used if the core rule has been modified.

It is more about programming an open ended application that can adapt to the rule that it is given.

good reading guys!