Detsella Morningdew 
"[@Background Pony #EE55":](/1724118#comment_7832132
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Oh, totally. Robot decision-making is based on things like the locations of infrared beacons (the most reliable), and sonar, which basically tells the distance to things in a straight line.
While things like color sensors and touch sensors exist, they are either unreliable or the robot just doesn't have the reaction time to deal with the information.
The only feasible way that I could see a robot fight working out well with completely automated bots, is if each bot was required to have an IR beacon in the robot's center of mass or something, and each team's robot had two or three sonar sensors that could tell where things were.
But even at the international level, the programming required for that would not be feasible. (I mean, as bad and hacked together I thought my program was (since I was the only one working on it), it was considered to be one of the best in the competition, since almost everybody was focused on the "build the robot" bit.)
Maybe in competitions made for adults, and not pre-teen/teens.
But most people like the remote-control competitions, since they are more exciting to watch. And more marketable, since people watch them on TV.
Edit: I just thought of a very simple program that would work for the setup I described. But still, most people just aren't excited about that sort of thing, and would rather play a very fun, real-life video game with awesome hunks of metal.
Oh, totally. Robot decision-making is based on things like the locations of infrared beacons (the most reliable), and sonar, which basically tells the distance to things in a straight line.
While things like color sensors and touch sensors exist, they are either unreliable or the robot just doesn't have the reaction time to deal with the information.
The only feasible way that I could see a robot fight working out well with completely automated bots, is if each bot was required to have an IR beacon in the robot's center of mass or something, and each team's robot had two or three sonar sensors that could tell where things were.
But even at the international level, the programming required for that would not be feasible. (I mean, as bad and hacked together I thought my program was (since I was the only one working on it), it was considered to be one of the best in the competition, since almost everybody was focused on the "build the robot" bit.)
Maybe in competitions made for adults, and not pre-teen/teens.
But most people like the remote-control competitions, since they are more exciting to watch. And more marketable, since people watch them on TV.
Edit: I just thought of a very simple program that would work for the setup I described. But still, most people just aren't excited about that sort of thing, and would rather play a very fun, real-life video game with awesome hunks of metal.