See, there was this plane flying in from Poland. It was full of Polish immigrants coming to New York for the very first time. After a long and boring run over the ocean, the pilot comes on the PA, "We are now arriving in New York City, in the United States of America, land of opportunity. If you look out the right windows, you will see the Statue of Liberty, symbol of freedom." The Polish immigrants pile over to look at the Statue in all its glory when suddenly the plane explodes. Engineers pour over the wreckage, and cannot find any mechanical failures anywhere on the plane. The final conclusion? There were just too many poles in the right-half of the plane.
Does anybody know off the top of their head how long past due these robots are? I remember them saying both machines would fail quickly, but they're still up and chuggin.
Im thinking NASA just gave those early death numbers to make themselves an easy goal to surpass. They havent exactly had a good track record lately.
...of course we were all thinking it though. Just remember Revenge of the Nerds, while all jocks do it think about sports, all nerds think about is sex.
Seriously though, pheremone colognes have been out for a long time, but now it seems they actually got them to work decently well. Though my initial reaction was that it would be sweet to just spray a little on and get all the chicks you want, but I do believe dating shouldn't be reduced to chemical warfare. At that point, the geeks will win for a while, but then its back to the rich guys who can afford the more expensive pheremone spray.
Next, there's the scary government conspiracy side. You're angry at the government one minute, next you're suddenly all happy for no explainable reason. Something to think about...
Its getting to the point where a company will have 'products' to show at the trade shows, but then you cant find any more information about it for the next year. Its very misleading and perpetuates the whole vaporware idea, where what you see before your eyes may not actually ever exist in the real world.
One recent example is the company Archos who recently announced a new video/mp3 player with built in PDA...go to their website and there is no information whatsoever, not even a press release or a hype page.
Companies need to set realistic timetables and not give in to the masses judging their whole existence based on one trade show. And we, as consumers, need to cut the companies a little slack if a project does get delayed or if they dont have much to show at E3. Maybe then things will be a little less hectic.
I agree...I talked to a couple team members (and my girlfriend, who happens to be on another team...could get ugly:)), and they are all very disappointed. Cheering is going to suck because all you can do is scream the positive "Go! Get those balls in the weird lookin tube thing!", instead of hoping the robot opposite you is going to tip as they speed up the ramp. I wish they would drop the coopetition stuff and go back to how it was a few years ago, where it's every robot for themselves.
I agree. The FIRST website is very plain and the information is either hidden or not all there. They use PDF's (sometimes very large ones) for all info and it gets to be a pain. They should update a little bit (3.0 browsers at least?), add more contact and FAQs, maybe some webboards.
Awww yeah, new rules are up, and there is a team meeting today at 3:00. For the next 6 weeks school, work, and our social lives get put on hold while we design, build, and (hopefully) test our machine. At the same time we need to be making a 3d animation, raising money, trying to market our team, etc. This competition isn't just about building a robot, for our team its about running a business. And this year, our business is gonna make a robot to rock all of you!
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See, there was this plane flying in from Poland. It was full of Polish immigrants coming to New York for the very first time. After a long and boring run over the ocean, the pilot comes on the PA, "We are now arriving in New York City, in the United States of America, land of opportunity. If you look out the right windows, you will see the Statue of Liberty, symbol of freedom." The Polish immigrants pile over to look at the Statue in all its glory when suddenly the plane explodes. Engineers pour over the wreckage, and cannot find any mechanical failures anywhere on the plane. The final conclusion? There were just too many poles in the right-half of the plane.
Does anybody know off the top of their head how long past due these robots are? I remember them saying both machines would fail quickly, but they're still up and chuggin.
Im thinking NASA just gave those early death numbers to make themselves an easy goal to surpass. They havent exactly had a good track record lately.
...of course we were all thinking it though. Just remember Revenge of the Nerds, while all jocks do it think about sports, all nerds think about is sex.
Seriously though, pheremone colognes have been out for a long time, but now it seems they actually got them to work decently well. Though my initial reaction was that it would be sweet to just spray a little on and get all the chicks you want, but I do believe dating shouldn't be reduced to chemical warfare. At that point, the geeks will win for a while, but then its back to the rich guys who can afford the more expensive pheremone spray.
Next, there's the scary government conspiracy side. You're angry at the government one minute, next you're suddenly all happy for no explainable reason. Something to think about...
Its getting to the point where a company will have 'products' to show at the trade shows, but then you cant find any more information about it for the next year. Its very misleading and perpetuates the whole vaporware idea, where what you see before your eyes may not actually ever exist in the real world. One recent example is the company Archos who recently announced a new video/mp3 player with built in PDA...go to their website and there is no information whatsoever, not even a press release or a hype page. Companies need to set realistic timetables and not give in to the masses judging their whole existence based on one trade show. And we, as consumers, need to cut the companies a little slack if a project does get delayed or if they dont have much to show at E3. Maybe then things will be a little less hectic.
I think we /.'ed Romero's website to death. Bandwidth exceeded. Oops!
I agree...I talked to a couple team members (and my girlfriend, who happens to be on another team...could get ugly :)), and they are all very disappointed. Cheering is going to suck because all you can do is scream the positive "Go! Get those balls in the weird lookin tube thing!", instead of hoping the robot opposite you is going to tip as they speed up the ramp. I wish they would drop the coopetition stuff and go back to how it was a few years ago, where it's every robot for themselves.
I agree. The FIRST website is very plain and the information is either hidden or not all there. They use PDF's (sometimes very large ones) for all info and it gets to be a pain. They should update a little bit (3.0 browsers at least?), add more contact and FAQs, maybe some webboards.
Awww yeah, new rules are up, and there is a team meeting today at 3:00. For the next 6 weeks school, work, and our social lives get put on hold while we design, build, and (hopefully) test our machine. At the same time we need to be making a 3d animation, raising money, trying to market our team, etc. This competition isn't just about building a robot, for our team its about running a business. And this year, our business is gonna make a robot to rock all of you!