[Dprglist] Which contest is harder?

[Rud Merriam]

I just posted your competition on my Autonomous Robot Competitions 
Facebook page. The page is a closed group so you shouldn't get bombarded 
with spam, but may get some competitors from other locations. The page 
is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/autonomousrobot/. Let me know if 
you don't want this.

Sample Retrieval is like the NASA Sample Return I did back in 2013 but 
in a smaller area. It's a nice challenge. I think you need a time limit 
on how long a robot can attempt to retrieve the items.

My personal feeling is that Four Corners is an outmoded competition, 
although I can see the interest. When it was started the only way to 
navigate for hobby level robots was dead reckoning so precise odometry 
was necessary. Today's navigation is vision, IMU, etc and the precision 
measured by Four Corners isn't necessary. Correction and adjustment of 
position is done through other sensors.


-73 -
*Rud Merriam K5RUD*
/Mystic Lake Software/ <http://mysticlakesoftware.com/>

On 1/20/19 7:56 PM, Doug Paradis via DPRGlist wrote:
> -All,
>     I am preparing the announcement of Roborama 2019, and am trying to 
> sort the contests by difficulty. How would you gauge the Four Corners 
> competition vs. Table Top - Classic?
>
> To refresh your memory, Four Corners, the robot drives around a large 
> square course and attempts to end at the same location that it 
> started. In Table Top - Classic, the robot is placed on a table and 
> must do 3 tasks: drive to the opposite edge of the table with some 
> part of the robot over the edge and return to the start area, knock a 
> soda can off the table, and lastly, push a soda can to edge where a 
> box is located so the can falls into the box.
>
> I initially thought that being successful in Four Corners is harder, 
> than doing the tasks in Table Top - Classic. My thought was the robot 
> needed to be more precise and capable in Four Corners, where in Table 
> Top - Classic there are many ways to solve the problem. With this in 
> mind, I gauged Table Top - Classic to be a high level beginner 
> contest and Four Corners to be an intermediate level contest.
>
> What do you guys and gals think?
>
> BTW, rules are at https://www.dprg.org/contest-rules/.
>
>
> Regards,
> Doug Paradis
>
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