Re: webots contest

Xavier Bitot wrote:
> 1)      I haven't noticed any change at all in my robot between webots 4 and 5.
> Are the physics of the game definitive until the end of the
> contest or is there a chance that they change before May 1st? You
> (Olivier) have been talking a few months ago about a self-collision
> test but it would probably break many robot moves….  Since there
> are now less than two months to go, in my opinion it is time to
> "freeze" the physics so that everybody can focus on building moves
> that will not have to be changed.

I think self-collisions would be a good addition, but I agree that if 
it's going to be included, it should be done soon and then the physics 
kept the same.  Also, if any changes like this are going to happen to 
the physics, it would be nice to have some warning so we could start 
adjusting our robots now.

> 
> 2)      I have been following the evolution of the hall of fame since last
> summer and it is very interesting to notice that it has been changing
> a lot all the time even when the robots were hardly ever updated.

I don't know how much I can trust the "last modified" column in the hall 
of fame.  From what I can tell, it checks the modified date of the main 
robot class.  I updated toddler last week, but because I was only 
changing some of the motions and other classes, it didn't change 
toddler's "last modified" date.  I don't expect the 
ToddlerInSnowsuit.class file to need to change at all for the rest of 
the contest, in fact, as the important things are handled in other 
classes.  However, I don't know how common this is with the other 
competitors, and may just be unique to toddler's code organization.

> 
> 3)      Webots doesn't react exactly the same on all platforms and the
> possibility of playing off-contest matches is a great improvement
> compared to last year, it gives us the opportunity to try our
> robot moves on the server without having to wait for a day, I really
> like it. At the moment only one set per match is run in off-contest
> games. Would that be possible to play for example a 5 sets match
> instead, so that we can download several sets at once and try
> different things according to the score without having to upload a new
> controller after each set or use a random strategy choice?

I agree, but I still think running quick matches to test little things 
is very useful.  I'd like a drop-down box on the test match page to 
choose how many rounds to do.

> 5)      Is it not possible anymore to upload a zip file on the server?
> I tried it yesterday afternoon and it didn't work, but uploading the files
> one by one was fine.

I've only ever uploaded zip files for toddler.  If that's not working 
anymore, it's definitely going to be a problem.  Toddler's code is 
organized into packages, which means a directory structure is necessary. 
  I just create a zip with all the necessary directory structure, and 
upload that.  The server unpacks it, preserving the directory structure, 
and everything works nicely.  It was working as recently as last week.


I have a couple of other things I'd like to ask or mention:

- The LED settings for eyes and such don't seem to get recorded into the 
wva files, or if they do, it's not getting displayed.  It would be nice 
if we could get that to help debug what the robot was thinking when it 
does something stupid in a match.

- The "judo" characters on the mat are backwards when displayed in the 
windows webview program.  They're fine in the simulator and in the linux 
webview, but for some reason, they're flipped in the windows webview. 
Yeah, I know, this is pretty minor.

- Would it be difficult to change the "last modified" column to reflect 
the last time anything was uploaded to that robot?

- How exactly does the distance sensor work in the simulation?  It seems 
to vary wildly during test matches.  I've been assuming that it is the 
distance to whatever is at the center pixel in the camera's image.  Is 
that true?

- The legs are mirror images in configuration, but that's not how it 
appears in the diagram here: http://roboka.org/images/judoka_servos.png
The hip servo order doesn't match between the left and right hips.  I 
believe the right hip order is the correct one.

- How noisy is the GPS measurement in the online matches?  It's 
perfectly accurate offline.  We've started using it for some things 
recently, which seem to work fine online as well.  The documentation 
says the the position measurements are noisy online, but I haven't seem 
it seeming to affect anything in the online matches.

Good luck to everyone in the matches!
-Joel


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