
Show HN: Robots Are My Passion - zerzeru
https://www.personalrobots.biz/?rel=💙
======
JoeAltmaier
Another note: I remember a colleague telling me about a San Francisco Robotics
Challenge they were part of (as staff/judging). The challenge was simply to
navigate a tiny, tiny maze of plywood walls with one jog in an otherwise
straight corridor. Flat floor, good lighting.

I remembered a paper-airplane contest where the winning time-in-air entry was
a simple strip of stiff paper with a slight bend - flip it and it 'rolled' in
the air descending surprisingly slowly. It was disqualified for 'not looking
like an airplane'.

So I naturally asked, what was the criterion for 'robot'? He said two
categories, autonomous and fly-by-wire (this was the early 80s).

Was the task complete when the robot was entirely out of the maze, or when any
part of the robot passed the finish line? Any part he said.

Good enough for me. I told him I had several entries, and would he let me know
if any were suitable for their contest? Sure, he said, what are they?

The first looks like a bucket of confetti and a fan. The fan is sitting on a
step ladder. You tip the bucket of confetti by hand, but after that the robot
is self-guided.

That's not a robot, he said.

Ok, my next one is simpler. It looks like a bucket of water. You tip it over
at the entrance, and it naturally follows the maze using gravity and surface
tension.

That's not a robot, he said.

Ok, can it have biological components? Sure, he said, getting excited. What do
you have in mind?

Well, my next robot looks like a cat with a propeller beanie (the receiver).
Somebody puts it down by the entrance, and I transmit a homing signal (Here
Kitty! Kitty!) at the exit.

That's not a robot, he said.

Turns out, none of my robots would suit his criterion. Not even my nanobot -
in a glass vial, pull the stopper at the entrance and when my detector went
Ding! at the exit (looked like an oven timer) the nano-bot had arrived.
Despite all his assurances, all they would actually admit were
electromechanical devices with wheels, solenoids etc.

So that put me off robotics for 20 years.

~~~
choonway
You're just being difficult with the judges, it's a small event, they don't
have enough money to hire big lawyers to come up with a 1 ton rulebook that
would cover every eventuality.

Keep in the spirit of the competition and try not to cheese things too much
and everybody would be much happier.

If you still can't understand, well, feel free to set up your own robotics
competition and see how many people would sign up.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Spirit? Supposed to spur innovation, but turned into a remote-control-car
event by dry unimaginative robotics folk.

Nobody was unhappy; folks were smiling. Just pedants on HN that have an issue
far as I can see.

~~~
choonway
These sort of low level competitions aren't there to spur innovation - it's
just to kindle some interest with kids or the general public. Once you realise
that, just smile and move on and let them play fast and loose with words.

If you really want to do innovation, there's DARPA - they've lots of problems
that they need solving they can't do with today's robots. Or if you have
something against the military, there's always something similar to the Amazon
Picking Challenge.

------
msadowski
It's always interesting to meet a fellow Robotics enthusiast! Do you test the
robots yourself before you write about them?

~~~
zerzeru
thanks I'm glad to meet someone with my same passion :) do you have a website?

yes some of them I manage to test, others no but make the reviews on
particular parameters like presence of AI, responsiveness ,presence of sdk,
functionalities, etc

~~~
msadowski
I have a newsletter:
[https://weeklyrobotics.com/](https://weeklyrobotics.com/)

and a personal blog that I should update more often:
[https://msadowski.github.io/](https://msadowski.github.io/)

~~~
zerzeru
thanks! :)

