Final seminar

This Friday was the last seminar and actually it was the most interesting one. At this seminar every group showed what they had done. We had a contest between 4 rescue robots, a robo-soccer game and also a robot which finds a route in a maze. Of course we also showed our Spike, which willingly carried out all my orders, sent from the phone. It was the most exciting part of the course – to see robots working. But think that I have noticed is that every team had some failures in construction or logic of their robots. All projects were a little bit unfinished, just few more testing was required to make solid robot. I think that all of teams left some work to the last studying week, where there were no enough time because of other courses. That is why I think, that there should be one session before final, where every team should show their working “beta-releases” and after that, if any bugs are found fix them before final seminar. That is especially useful for robots which take part in contests (rescue and soccer). Anyway, two of four rescue robots got very high score even without this improving step, but I think that rescue stand could be made more difficult for student’s contests (more obstacles, bigger gaps in line, etc). Also it is good idea to share your progress during the course not by showing presentations, but rather by bringing your robot and showing everybody its construction features and what he is already able to do. I think this will reveal main advantage of the course – the ability to see and touch what you are developing.