Robot Tour C [TRIAL]

[lindsmaurer]

My earlier point on cannot getting tiered was a response to SP1's note on what it takes to get participation points. It is more than possible, though difficult and time consuming, to build a competitive device for far less than the minimum entry estimate. Honestly, if I was doing this event, I would not start out with what I described, but my point was not that it was the fastest path, simply a way to build a device on the minimum budget.

This being said, I find it VERY intriguing that far, far, far more of these smaller rural school are participating in events like Digitals Structures over events like Robot Tour. In my opinion this speaks volumes over what the Science Olympiad community as a whole thinks.

This could say one of two things to me. It could very well mean that most schools simply cannot afford the cost of competing in robotics events, which is plausible. I have so far been reading it, though, as Digital Structure being the official replacement for Boomilever at many invitationals, and not requiring a build. It's not a waste of time and materials like Robot Tour is currently many teams.

See Nationals 2006, where 39 teams participated in Balloon Launched Glider, a trial event. Or, see Wisconsin States 2019, where 20 teams participated in Aerial Scramble.

I repeat, "for an invitational". Wisconsin has a different event structure, and that was states, and Nationals routinely has high participation in trial events.

My problem with this event is that larger and more funded teams have a much higher POTENTIAL to do well, over events like Digital Structures and Mechatronics. The buy in cost is inherently high, and building a custom robot gets very pricey unless you know EXACTLY what you need.

This will always be the issue with any build, not just robotics. What I think makes this event different is (as the trend has been with events like detector building, which in my opinion wasn't entirely successful in this) the focus shifts from the build itself to coding and competitive strategy, but it's far less subjective than something like vehicle design. I would honestly like to see this event somehow run in one of a few ways:

Each team comes in with their own modifiable code to run a preset vehicle that is made with a <$50 kit on an arduino. This would shift the focus entirely to competitive strategy, and make it affordable to run and practice for any team. It may, however, make it too easy.

A much more restrictive materials list. Lots of robotics competitions are run this way, but instead of restricting the materials to high-end, expensive products, restricting the materials to a range of affordable (still reliable) components, and requiring the inclusion of more detailed parts lists on logs would make the components for devices much more accessible (this was somewhat attempted with detector last year, but it got far too restrictive and didn't strike a balance between allowing build creativity and allowing accessibility)

I'm wasn't trying to imply that this event is perfect as is (it's not, and I understand that my earlier post minimizes that), but I feel that it's much less pay-to-win than many past build events. There are still changes that need to be made, but I feel that robotics events still deserve a place in SO, as long as the National Office can figure out a way to include less advantaged teams, and remove the variable of money as much as possible.

EDIT: note (as you probably have already lol) that these ideas are coming from someone on a team that is very fortunate, and so I'm not necessarily the resource for ideas on how to help less privileged teams. These are just what I've come up with from other events and other competitions.

[lindsmaurer]

My earlier point on cannot getting tiered was a response to SP1's note on what it takes to get participation points. It is more than possible, though difficult and time consuming, to build a competitive device for far less than the minimum entry estimate. Honestly, if I was doing this event, I would not start out with what I described, but my point was not that it was the fastest path, simply a way to build a device on the minimum budget.

This being said, I find it VERY intriguing that far, far, far more of these smaller rural school are participating in events like Digitals Structures over events like Robot Tour. In my opinion this speaks volumes over what the Science Olympiad community as a whole thinks.

This could say one of two things to me. It could very well mean that most schools simply cannot afford the cost of competing in robotics events, which is plausible. I have so far been reading it, though, as Digital Structure being the official replacement for Boomilever at many invitationals, and not requiring a build. It's not a waste of time and materials like Robot Tour is currently many teams.

See Nationals 2006, where 39 teams participated in Balloon Launched Glider, a trial event. Or, see Wisconsin States 2019, where 20 teams participated in Aerial Scramble.

I repeat, "for an invitational". Wisconsin has a different event structure, and that was states, and Nationals routinely has high participation in trial events.

My problem with this event is that larger and more funded teams have a much higher POTENTIAL to do well, over events like Digital Structures and Mechatronics. The buy in cost is inherently high, and building a custom robot gets very pricey unless you know EXACTLY what you need.

This will always be the issue with any build, not just robotics. What I think makes this event different is (as the trend has been with events like detector building, which in my opinion wasn't entirely successful in this) the focus shifts from the build itself to coding and competitive strategy, but it's far less subjective than something like vehicle design. I would honestly like to see this event somehow run in one of a few ways:

Each team comes in with their own modifiable code to run a preset vehicle that is made with a <$50 kit on an arduino. This would shift the focus entirely to competitive strategy, and make it affordable to run and practice for any team. It may, however, make it too easy.

A much more restrictive materials list. Lots of robotics competitions are run this way, but instead of restricting the materials to high-end, expensive products, restricting the materials to a range of affordable (still reliable) components, and requiring the inclusion of more detailed parts lists on logs would make the components for devices much more accessible (this was somewhat attempted with detector last year, but it got far too restrictive and didn't strike a balance between allowing build creativity and allowing accessibility)

I'm wasn't trying to imply that this event is perfect as is (it's not, and I understand that my earlier post minimizes that), but I feel that it's much less pay-to-win than many past build events. There are still changes that need to be made, but I feel that robotics events still deserve a place in SO, as long as the National Office can figure out a way to include less advantaged teams, and remove the variable of money as much as possible.

EDIT: note (as you probably have already lol) that these ideas are coming from someone on a team that is very fortunate, and so I'm not necessarily the resource for ideas on how to help less privileged teams. These are just what I've come up with from other events and other competitions.

To counter your first point, Robot Tour is being run as a competitive event at the Wisconsin state tournament. So far, there has been 1 single team from our state to have a successful run. It's not that it's a stand alone at an invitational. Digital Structures is also being run at our state tournament, and there were far far far more in state teams signed up. I highly doubt this is just coincidence. Overall the event in its current iteration is completely unfeasible to me and other rural, poor, underfunded, small schools. This can be seen in which single Wisconsin team got a scoreable run. This school was Marquette University, a private all boys school, from what is likely the upper class citizens of Milwaukee. If this event should be rotated in, why does 1 team have a scoreable run from our state, when this event is being counted for a team score at state? There were more teams with a scoreable run in robocross from our state at Boyceville last year (an event viewed as both pay to play and pat to win). My point I'm trying to make is that this event should absolutely not be rotated in nationally as it currently sits. This is due to a lack of interest in competing and high costs to get a non-negative run. This has been and always will be a problem Scioly. I do think it's possible to make a competitive robot for less than 50 dollars, however ONLY IF YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO BUY. Most teams will do trial and error and likely buy more stuff to get a better and more competitive robot, raising the costs. It will also raise it a lot if (like Nick said) teams have to buy in bulk to get parts they need. If this event counts for Wisconsin, why aren't more Wisconsin teams doing it? The answer is obvious, in that it's too expensive for many Wisconsin teams.

[Rossyspsce]

I feel that it's much less pay-to-win than many past build events

Compared to what? Past robotics events? Because making the blanket statement "many past build events" is simply not true.

[Name]

There are still changes that need to be made, but I feel that robotics events still deserve a place in SO, as long as the National Office can figure out a way to include less advantaged teams, and remove the variable of money as much as possible.

DISCLAIMER: The following represents my personal viewpoint, not necessarily the viewpoint of the site itself. Maybe I don't need to say that now that I'm emeritus, but I feel like I do just in case

I wanted to zero in on this specific point, because I think it gets to the core of the issue. It is fine that SO wants to try to implement robotics events, but robotics events by their very nature tend to be inequitable. Purchasing parts and going through the trial and error of what works and what doesn't adds up much more when you're trying to fit together the mechanical parts of a robot, unless you know exactly what you're doing, which in the case of these rural schools that don't already have a robotics team, is unlikely. From a standalone event standpoint, it is and will remain tremendously difficult to implement a robotics event in almost any traditional sense.

The only way to truly address this is to go deeper. As has been brought up in this thread a couple of times, the higher levels of Science Olympiad are dominated by schools that originate in affluent areas. This is not necessarily a problem per se, but it does represent an obstacle to smaller and low-income teams. As long as events remain affordable, then these schools can still get something out of the competition, striving for states qualification and individual event medals, but if an event gets more expensive, there will be teams that ask themselves: is it really worth it to spend this money only to get beaten in the long run? The answer may start to be no. And what it really comes down to is this: Science Olympiad* groups together every school, regardless of resources, into the same pot to compete. And the only way to really, truly make Science Olympiad more equitable, and to make events more equitable by proxy, is to have a nationwide A/AA split where schools with small sizes and/or low-income populations can compete against more similarly-situated schools. Aside from that, everything else is window dressing.

Now, are there challenges to implementing such a thing? You betcha. And given how decentralized NSO is, with pretty much all of the power given to the state orgs, there is very little chance anything like this can come to fruition anytime soon. But unless NSO is willing to really look internally at how the competition is set up and who sets the overall rules/regs of competition, their control over equitability is very limited. And, unfortunately, that means a traditional robotics event that is fair to students from all backgrounds is effectively impossible.

*Yes, I know some states already do an A/AA or other small school split. But while I commend these efforts, there's only so far it can go when only implemented in a few states here and there.

[waterlubber]

Here's my take on this event, after a few friends directed me to this thread.
I've had a lot of experience with "cheap electronics," since electronics is one of my largest hobbies and many of my projects have a $0 "garbage around the house" budget.
This event *could* be completed for less than $50. Microcontroller, motors, batteries, etc. would make up most of the cost - I'd probably have to design my own sensor package and build my own motor drivers. However, just because the event could be completed cheaply does not mean it has equability concerns. A team with significant money could skip the engineering challenge and purchase pre-made parts for the vast majority of the device.

- Instead of salvaging motors from the lab or using whatever's around a dated school lab, including engineering attachment methods, gearboxes, etc; an affluent competitor could simply purchase a drivetrain, complete with wheels, motors, etc.
- Instead of designing the high-power switching circuitry necessary to control motors, dealing with phenomena such as inductive kickback, reversing motor polarity (like with an h-bridge), etc; a competitor could simply buy a motor driver board that handled this for them.
- Instead of designing the line follower with a creative system of photoresistors and LEDs, a competitor could simply buy a webcam and immensely powerful processor and run pre-made computer vision software.
- etc. etc. etc. Money is often the "solution" to many of these engineering challenges, and serves as one of the ideal solutions that competitors don't have access to.

Even neglecting all of these considerations -- perhaps the rules are designed to completely eliminate them -- the event still falls prey to one of the larger failings with building events: tools. While I'd expect many schools to have access to basic diagnostic tools (a multimeter is an absolute necessity for any electronics event), financially advantaged teams would have access to much more. Some examples (although these are not exhaustive) would be 3D printers, oscilloscopes, debuggers, modular power supplies, etc. Even the track itself poses a challenge: testing the device requires access to a gym floor, which may not always be accessible to competitors. (It certainly can't be easily tested in a household!)

The rules itself pose similar problems: they effectively require a laptop, something that might not always be accessible to competitors. (For many years, all I had was a laptop that needed AC power to operate, as the battery was shot).

Ultimately, the event could be completed by many teams on a shoestring budget -- I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be able to do well. However, more affluent teams would have a significant advantage, and a far less skilled affluent team would be able to compete at a level equivalent to a much more skilled less affluent one. A good event would have a poor correlation between affluence and success -- for example, something that required creative mechanical design and custom-made components would be FAR better than an event that was relatively "common." Common challenges, like line-following robots, have many existing commercial products. Unique challenges invented for Science Olympiad work much better: the fewer premade components that work, the better.

Neglecting the equality concerns, there are a couple of other nitpicks I have with the rules. The "programming impound" system seems unrealistic and awkward: I can easily imagine ways to circumvent that restriction, and many edge cases -- such as competitors using Linux, command-line programmers like avrdude, etc. would easily confuse many event supervisors unfamiliar with such tools. A FAR better solution would be to simply disallow programming altogether: competitors would need to engineer a way to program their device at runtime! (Banning touch-screen displays would be a good start.)


Here are suggestions for potential improvements that I've had, in order of my fondness of them:
1. Replace the event with something unique to Science Olympiad. A purely mechanical, "marionette" style robot arm, would teach many of the fundamentals of kinematics and robotics while also requiring clever engineering. Detector Building is an interesting concept; while the thermometer idea doesn't distinguish teams enough (it is surprisingly easy to build incredibly accurate thermometers), I've got a few ideas for really creative challenges that can be accomplished cheaply -- eg "determine the color of an LED with photoresistors", "measure the flow rate of a fluid", etc. Disallowing commercial components for both would require significant engineering work...I'd love to see all the approaches to competitor-build fluid flow meters!

2. Remove the "live programming" ability. Competitors should design their devices to work even without adjustment at competition. This greatly increases the programming challenge, something that is more equitable (as it costs zero dollars to think!)

3. Require unconventional movement mechanisms or disallow any store-bought components for motor electronics. Perhaps require competitors to build their devices from simple integrated circuits only -- no premade PCBs. Extra, extra bonus points for disallowing micro controllers entirely and simplifying the track -- a line-following robot could be built with just analog electronics, which would pose a really exciting challenge (although perhaps too difficult...)

I've got quite a few other ideas for engineering events like this, but in general, my ideal is something that requires as much ground-up engineering as possible. No store bought components or pre-made designs: you really need a creative team and a creative solution.

Let me know your thoughts.

[knightmoves]

*Yes, I know some states already do an A/AA or other small school split. But while I commend these efforts, there's only so far it can go when only implemented in a few states here and there.

Just saw this, and thought I'd comment. Illinois has an A/AA split at state, but it's really not determined by school size, resources, or anything like that - it's purely determined by results. AA teams are basically those expected to finish in the top half at state, A teams are expected to be the bottom half. Yeah, that often correlates with size and resources, but it means that a small school that performs well will find itself promoted out of A into AA, where it has to compete against the teams that are gunning for nationals.

And regionals aren't divided, which means that if you're in a tough region, you've got to be performing well to even make it to state.

In practice, it does a fair job at giving teams from different parts of the state a shot, but not such a great job at giving that same shot to the poorly-resourced neighbors of the top flight teams.

[BennyTheJett]

*Yes, I know some states already do an A/AA or other small school split. But while I commend these efforts, there's only so far it can go when only implemented in a few states here and there.

Just saw this, and thought I'd comment. Illinois has an A/AA split at state, but it's really not determined by school size, resources, or anything like that - it's purely determined by results. AA teams are basically those expected to finish in the top half at state, A teams are expected to be the bottom half. Yeah, that often correlates with size and resources, but it means that a small school that performs well will find itself promoted out of A into AA, where it has to compete against the teams that are gunning for nationals.

And regionals aren't divided, which means that if you're in a tough region, you've got to be performing well to even make it to state.

In practice, it does a fair job at giving teams from different parts of the state a shot, but not such a great job at giving that same shot to the poorly-resourced neighbors of the top flight teams.

Wisconsin runs a 1st and 2nd Division for its invitationals, where they break up based on school size (conveniently just below whatever Menomonie's school population usually is). This works similarly to A/AA but it's more centered around size and funding, which may work better for NSO in the long run. I also think that given Scilympiad and its capabilities, a 2nd division of Scioly is possible, and that a nationals for that could be hosted on the platform (though unfortunately the future for Scilympiad isn't bright I don't think). I just think that Science Olympiad needs to do a better job of catering to smaller schools to keep growing as the nation's STEM extracurricular leader.