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Dean Kamen Awarded Patent For Robot Competition Rules
An anonymous reader writes "Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway and the founder of the FIRST Robotics Competition has been granted Patent 7,507,169, that describes one of the previous competitions. The main invention is a ranking system that ranks teams not only on their score, but their opponents' score, so teams are rewarded for helping their opponents score more. It is claimed that this ranking system promotes the made up phrases 'coopertition' and 'gracious professionalism.' It had three rejections, and even more appeals, before finally being accepted six years after the first application. While a majority of his 130 patents are for things related to his inventions, which are as diverse as medical equipment, unique uses for Stirling engines, and transportation, this one seems a little dubious. Dean opposes the Patent Reform Act of 2009, which would make it easier to overturn patents after they are granted."
LOL
It's interesting to see someone having the exact same memory. In my final year of High School, my FIRST team found itself on both sides of that humiliation. In different matches, we both had to score points for our opponents, and found our opponents scoring points for us.
As I see it, the most serious imbalance in FIRST are those of the sponsors. How can a public school team sponsored by local transport and engineering companies seriously compete against, say, a team sponsored by both Microsoft and Delphi? For those who never competed, you should be aware that sponsorship, in FIRST, is not limited to supplying equipment and access to manufacturing facilities, but also employee-mentors, who provide varying (often unequal) levels of assistance during the design/build phase.
No scoring system can regulate that sort of unbalance.
Trust me, kids; don't drink and post.
"It is claimed that this ranking system promotes the made up phrases 'coopertition' and 'gracious professionalism.'"
The ranking system is an excellent piece of game theory. In fact it's worth a Nobel prize. Specifically John Nash's. The system is based on the subset of the Nash Equilibrium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium in which the players cooperate to maximize overall success. It was characterized in the 'nobody go for the blond' scene in "A Beautiful Mind". Despite suffering from schizophrenia, Nash managed to get across a novel concept that contradicted the basic tenets of economics without making up goofy names.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
As a student competitor in FIRST Robotics competition for the past three years, I have some experience with FIRST and its rules. What happened this year has made many question whether FIRST rewards winning or if it is just trying to design games where nobody's feelings get hurt.
This year's FRC game was called Lunacy. Two teams of three robots tried to score special balls in trailers pulled by opposing robots. Overall the game was well received in the FIRST community except for a certain rule. The rule in question stated that if one alliance doubled or tripled the opposing alliances score, they would lose a certain game piece (and therefore some ability to score) in their next match.
Some like that rule saying that it added strategy because blowing out the opponents would be counted productive. Also, those people said that the rule helped emphasize that running up the score is not in line with "Gracious Professionalism."
Most people, however, found "G22" to be quite stupid. The lack of reliable real-time scoring meant that the drivers and coaches would often not know what the score was, defeating any strategic depth it may have added. Furthermore, the concept that you can be punished for doing too well in competition was something many found ridiculous.
This whole incident has made me question whether FIRST Robotics can be considered a serious competitive game. Dean Kamen himself has urged competitors in FIRST to garner more media coverage for the competition. Until teams are no longer punished for doing too well, I don't think most media outlets or anyone else can take the competition too seriously.