Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

In the last meetings of my Introduction to Robotics classes for the thirteenth week of the third term and for the whole term, they “finished” for the first of two opportunities, their fighting robots for the competition on the next two days.

One team that had some sort of railing on the sides of their robots, beyond the ten by twelve maximum bases, that just barely touched the floor, took them off when it was revealed that if they did touch the floor it would already be considered as a tilt.

The same, in another clarification of the rules, I said could not be said about a moving part that hits the floor, unless it stays on the floor for more than the five-second limit. If it momentarily on the floor but goes up again, it is not considered as a tilt.

While it is still attached to the robot, that is. When it falls off the robot that is another point that will be counted against them if it comes to a draw.

A draw is defined as reaching the end of the prescribed three-minute time limit for each round without either robot falling.

When a rotor falls, it is not considered as a loss unless it is the only rotor of the robot, and therefore it could not “attack” anymore.

The same is true if the batteries fail or if the wire connecting the rotor to the brain box also gets unplugged. Then the robot is declared as having lost that round.

Because of the tilt rule that was clarified, there was one group who, at the last minute, changed their design of their attacking “arm” to flail downward, so as to make the robot in front of them tilt, and maybe even fall.

The rest of the groups then just fortified and secured their moving parts to the bodies of the robots, so as not to get unnecessary falling parts.

I also gave the suggestion to the groups to have at least minimal programming in their robots to switch the direction of the rotation of the propellers so as not to get stuck in one position and to catch the opponent “off guard” but not everyone followed this.

Session 1073 has a large potential for its robot to tilt. Class dismissed.