Code Warriors – Page 28

Roboknights 2007

RoboKnights 2007 was held at Delhi Public School, R K Puram on 3-4 November 2007. Sadly, it was pretty much of a bad outing for us. We did win the first place in the quiz event (me, Arjun, and Abhimanyu); but pretty much tanked in rest of the events.

The beautiful looking RoboKnights 07 Quiz trophy – I like the design, really.

Frankly, we hadn’t prepared. Really. We were so busy doing stuff for Code Wars 2007 (our own event) because school was closing down for the Diwali break that we didn’t get time to work on our robot. In fact, I started working around midnight one day before the event, and finished around 4am in the morning. Basically, it was just a block of wood with four motors on it.

Day 1
Was bad. I’d got to know that some 102 teams had registered, but the actual event showed a different story…

Turned out, that 102 teams meant including all events. So on ground there only happened to be some 20 teams. And then their principal gave a drab, boring long speech (BTW, she said that ‘I see everyone’s getting restless, but I WILL give a long boring speech)…

People were getting restless because they got see an (unlocked) iPhone, which happened to be Waris’s. We had the Straw Bridge event first, where we had to make a bridge out of straws (duh), but because of a miscalculation all our weight got concentrated at the wrong point and ours could support only 4 kg (winners could support 12.5 kg or something!).

The other one was Tough. Out bot had NO reverse, so it was a tad difficult to navigate. Suffice to say that it got stuck on three attempts, so we didn’t qualify in that too. TOUGH luck. For a fuller account of Day 1, read Vivek’s version of it. Also, there was no Domino’s Pizza this time, it was the school hostel. I must admit though, that the food was really good, way better than OUR school’s hostel. What had happened is that their Math Society hadn’t got sponsorship for their event, so the suckers went and cried to their principal, got good food (aka Subway and Domino’s) cancelled at RoboKnights and Exun, and got money from that for their own event.

Oh BTW, also had the Quiz prelims. Damn easy. We qualified for the finals.

Day 2
Happened to add reverse this time, two wheels going front, two back. Still, our bot didn’t have enough traction for the Robotics (Football) League event. It was to be played on a small arena with ping pong balls, which happened to be so small that we discovered that it would pass right beneath the bot. So we came up with a plan using a copier paper box (the ‘package’ in which our bot came). We even have a video of the fabrication of this high tech bot…

[yahoo 4858509]

As you can clearly see here, our stuff was cutting edge tech. We finally decided to stick tape (sticky side out) with adhesive on it wheels to give it traction; it just so happened that it came off right away within a few seconds of the game starting. Since a bot ‘can’t leave a part behind’, we were disqualified.

Lunch time was fun. We decided to order pizza, bypassing the hostel food. Had a tough time convincing a joint that we were genuine buyers, because we were telling them to deliver at the front gate of a school. Anyway, we did order it, and waited at the front gate. The delivery guy happened to come along, and even though we’d emphasized main gate, the guy went off towards the sports complex. This had Abhimanyu (!) running (!!!) off there. He finally caught the guy, and we got our pizza.

Quiz finals later, where we basically won hands down. The others had been telling me the whole day that I hadn’t studied anything, and that I should have studied, and I should be studying. Turned out that in the end, I got most answers on stage. Our team name, BTW, for the events was WSOGMM – Whole Sort Of General Mish Mash – a perfect description of our bot.

They kept calling us WSOGGM because of which they got a nice shouting from us right during the prize distribution ceremony. Nice quiz though, real good questions, especially the ones Bharat came up with.

The winners of RoboKnights 2006 couldn’t reclaim their trophy. Let’s hope next year’s better…

The Wiki Way To Quizzing

It’s bang in the middle of tech quizzing season right now, and I’ve been getting requests from all around for tips on tech quizzing. Sure, some events are over, but ones coming up are big ones.

Now I don’t know whether the method I discuss here will be something that people may / may not like, but I leave that up to you. A few helpful pointers though before that.

Watch some tech show. I’d personally recommend BBC World’s Click, because it’s unbiased, get’s you the latest stuff AND history, and also bags interviews from industry bigwigs like Bill Gates and Vinton Cerf. Click has also got a nice site where they put up extended interviews for free online viewing. Or you could also watch CNN-IBN’s Tech 2.0 (which also has a site). It has more of an Indian touch, and is also more idiotic. They bag less tech news, and has a lot of bullshit product reviews which look like ads.
Subscribe to some tech magazine, if you can. I know they’re costly and can burn a hole in your pocket (if your pocket money happens to be limited, that is) – they cost around Rs 125-150 per issue – but there’s nothing like them to stay updated. PC World has the best hardware reviews and editorials, but it’s too Windows-centric. They also give Macworld and GamerPro on their DVD, so you can have that too. Digit is the other good magazine, more balanced in topic coverage, but shitty product reviews. They just hand the whole sheet of specs, and let the user decide. Thank you, I can get that from the OEM’s site / sellers too. PC World counts, because they themselves evaluate and explain why products are better, and they choose the right product, not what advertisers are pitching. In case you can’t buy them, read them in your school library, or visit their site. PC World for example has www.pcworld.in where ALL articles appearing in the magazine ARE put up in full – but you’ll have to individually hunt them out. These magazines also give out videos, software etc on DVD / CD, so get them too. Any other magazine like Chip and all are bullshit.
Subscribe to a newsletter? Nah. Never found it useful. Too much stuff in inbox.
Subscribe to a Digg feed? Again, nah. Browse Digg occasionally if you want, but subscribing to their feed is overkill.
Read tech blogs. Big task, because there are too many. I’d advise you to check out the Yodel Anecdotal (the official Yahoo! blog) and Google Operating System (an unofficial Google blog that collates stuff from a variety of sources) though, they’re real good. Also worth note are Engadget and Gizmodo, but that’s for hardware mostly.
Ditch Slashdot. It’s not really a good source to get quiz material from, because it’s highly opinionated and might set you off on the wrong track on some piece just because of the personal views of the one posting the story. It’s a pain in the ass to sift through all those stories too, so forget it.
Get tech news. Now you can do this in multiple ways – one being going to sites like CNet, ZDnet, PC World etc and reading stuff there; which once again creates the problem of having to sift through the news articles. Believe me, it’s real easy to miss out on something important. That’s why I suggest Yahoo! News, because it’s collates the best news stories from top agencies like PC World, Reuters, AFP, AP etc. You’ll be guaranteed to get the most important news in this way.
Phew. Long list, but regulars will already know this stuff. Anyway, I’m gonna start with my method now – some may already know it / be using it – but here goes.

I call it ‘The Wikipedia Method’. It’s really simple actually, and the description’s probably gonna be short. As simple as this – open up Wikipedia, and go to the article on some of the top companies – say Microsucks, Sony, IBM, HP, Dell, Oracle etc etc. Take only one company at a time, and expand slowly. Read the article, which WILL have hyperlinks to the company’s key people, major products, main events, etc. For example, say you take up Yahoo! Start reading the article, and whenever you encounter a link to a key person / product / event, open the page in a new tab; don’t read it right then. As you keep reading the article, keep opening stuff in new tabs. Firefox is best suited for this kinda stuff. Then, when you finish the current article, Yahoo! in this example, then move on to the NEXT tab, say, Jerry Yang. If you find more interesting links in this one, then open those too. Slowly, you’ll see how interconnected the companies are, and when you finish with a set of tabs, start afresh with a new company, say, Google. In this way, you’ll be able to get a good hold on tech history AND latest happenings. The advantage of this method is that because the data you read in one session is all interconnected to each other in some way, you’ll find it more interesting and make more sense of it; than say just randomly visiting the top company pages.

Start with a small set initially. I’d suggest you start with Apple, Microsucks, Yahoo!, Google, Sony, IBM and HP; and then expand from there on to other companies. Wikipedia’s own category pages, listed at the bottom, can help you out in expanding your list. It’s a good way of brushing up your tech knowledge, and Code Warriors whom I’ve passed this on to will also vouch for that.