[Dprglist] RoboColumbus rules question

[paradug]

John,
    It is funny that you ask. The DPRG monthly meeting topic is being presented by a Hackathon team made up of DPRG members (see dprg.org for news article). They used an online object identification (training set) as part of their project. 

    If I were interpreting current RoboColumbus  Plus rules, I would say that a web based training set app would fail the on-board test. The reason is because the rules specify specific types of allowed data transfer (It might also run afoul of the beacon definition). However, I for one would be ok with adding an off board image identification training set app to the list of allowable data transfer. The trend seems to be using large web based object training sets. I do wonder in the case of an orange traffic cone, if a sufficient training set could not be built and run on one of the available linux boards (RPi, BBB, STM32F7, Edison, etc...). I think you could identify it by color for example <grin>.

    Make sure you come to the Saturday meeting at DMS. We could discuss with others. I like your ideas.

    As for being stuck in high grass, the robots managed to navigate a fairly boggy section with high grass during the last contest. I could see a leaping/bouncing robot that didn’t go too high or offer too much of a scary situation, and was safe  being ok. The rules do not really cover a ground based robot that occasionally leaves the ground. For example, I don’t think a robot would be eliminated that left the ground due to an naturally occurring ramp. 

Regards,
Doug P.  

From: John Swindle 
Sent: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 11:01 AM
To: paradug at gmail.com ; dprglist at lists.dprg.org 
Cc: swindle at compuserve.com 
Subject: Re: [Dprglist] RoboColumbus rules question

Doug,

A couple more questions:

Does the self-contained definition prohibit the robot from asking a website a question? If all the decisions are made on-board, and the website is not merely giving coordinates to the robot, would that be OK? Ezra sent me several links for agricultural robots and plant identification apps. Good stuff. So, I wondered about having the robot look at things and ask a website what it was looking at. The site might reply, "That's an oak tree."

Staying on the ground: So if a robot is not flying, but also is not staying on the ground, would it be OK? No, not rocket power. But bouncing, maybe with some propeller lift, but not enough to achieve flight. Just thinking of ways to avoid getting stuck in mud and high grass.

Thanks!

John Swindle


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