Re: [robocup-rescue-s] Rescue Simulation outlook

Dear rescuers,

As one of the members of the community since 2002
along with Arian team, I want to remind you about the
terrible buggy and spaghetti server that has been
changed to current fully-functional well-structured
and really easy to use one during these recent years.

Ofcourse, the change is the result of the works of two
people that every body knows, and we shall really be
thanful for them.

Also the hard (and extra-ordinary) amount of work that
all of the committee members do to make a "good
competition" possible has made the main problems
hidden from the whole community (mainly, the fact that
every body shall contribute to the community to have a
good competition)

Compared with soccer simulation, robocup-rescue is:

1- less attractive,
2- more complicated

hence, there are normally less participants, less
contributors, and less progress in this field.

The complicated environment has led the teams to
develop "agents with good heuristics" where normally
"learning" shall be the main aspect in the league.

Another problem is the large number of iranian
participants (like myself, ofcourse!) that normally
participate ONLY to become the world championship.
Actually, among iranian's devoted to rescue
simulation, there are really few people like Arash ;-)
A simple review of the recent TDPs (2006, 2005, ...)
proves this.

Mainly, I suggest the committee to:

1- Limit the number of teams per country

2- Force teams contribute to the community:
Top 8 teams are assigned some shceduled tasks (coding,
testing, ...) by the committee and a minimum amount of
contribution becomes one of the mandatory
qualification materials.

3- Last stable version of the server is fixed for the
competitions at least 3 months earlier.

Best,
Mayssam

--- Arash Rahimi <rahimi_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Babak,
>
> Of course, project management has been one of our
> problems
> during these years. With no doubt, during these
> years of being
> a member of TC and OC, we always had enough ideas
> and
> plans for improving the quality of simulators and
> competitions.
> But what we were lacking [and I recently indicated
> in one of
> my last e-mails to TC and OC] was someone who could
> say
> the last word when we could not reach a final
> conclusion due
> to different ideas, a coordinator of tasks, and in a
> single word,
> a good manager.
>
> But, I still think that the problem was more serious
> than lack
> of a project manager. Project manager can do well
> when there
> is [at least some candidates willing to become] a
> team to
> accomplish some goal. But often, I wasn't able to
> sense such
> a team spirit in TC and OC. May be it is because
> some of us
> are only willing [and may be able] to do
> organization [and not
> technical] work. And may be some of us were so busy
> with
> their own work that they could not dedicate enough
> time and
> energy to this responsibility. In this state, one,
> as the coordinator
> among TC and OC members, was not sure whether a
> specific
> task would finish on time when he assigned it to
> someone else.
> Or one, may receive the first answer to his e-mail
> asking
> others to give their opinions regarding some subject
> about
> one ro two weeks later.
>
> And of course, the community is also another reason
> for some
> of our failures. RoboCup rescue simulation community
> is not
> so active. There are a few posts each month and the
> subjects
> of most of these posts are not interesting. I admit
> that in order
> to have a more active community, we should build a
> mroe attractive
> problem domain but in order to do so, the current
> members of
> community should dedicate what the are able to
> dedicate.
>
> At last, I would like to raise another question: Why
> are all of
> us saying these words now? To Ahmad, Nobel,
> Mohammad,
> and Omid: what if all bugs of package 0.50 were
> fixed last
> week? Did you send your e-mails regarding the league
> and
> its weaknesses in that case? I'm not sure about it!
> If TC and
> OC are not doing their job well for years and if the
> league is
> not approaching its desired goal, why weren't these
> e-mails
> sent one, two, three weeks/months ago?
>
> Regards,
> Arash
>
>
>
> On 6/5/07, Babak Behsaz <bbehsaz_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Dear Friends,
> >
> > I think the one of the MAIN problems of Robocup
> Rescue
> > Simulation Project is its weak project management.
> > There are many other problems that I will not
> address
> > here, because without a well-qualified management
> > team, we could not reach our desired goals.
> >
> > I believe even with these resources, we could have
> > more desirable output. But the management team
> (mainly
> > TC and OC, in my opinion) cannot utilize the full
> > capacity of these resources.
> > I have not enough evidences for this claim, but I
> > think members of OC and TC may remember some
> instances
> > of this weak management. Maybe, if some of them
> would
> > not be such conservative, we would have a clearer
> view
> > of what is happening in TC and OC and how they are
> > deciding and managing this project! I cannot even
> see
> > an organizational structure in TC and OC.
> >
> > Of course, one may say that management is not
> their
> > main responsibilities, but I will ask so who is
> > responsible for Project Management?
> >
> > Finally, I should mention that some of them may
> try
> > hard for the league, but their efforts do not seem
> to
> > be effective enough.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Babak Behsaz
> > 2003-2005 S.O.S. Team Member
> >
> > --- Mohammad Tavakoli Ghinani
> <mtavakoli_at_gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Rescuers!
> > >
> > > I think the fact is the rescue simulation will
> be
> > > vanished in
> > > the near future. Believe it or not, the current
> > > simulators are too far
> > > from the reality. Just as an example consider
> Misc
> > > simulator. I have
> > > selected it because it has the main effect on a
> > > simulation. The concepts such as
> > > HP, damage or buriedness do not have any
> > > justification. I don't want
> > > to list all of these problems because in my
> opinion
> > > these are not the
> > > causes, these are the effects. We should have
> some
> > > plans in the rescue
> > > simulation for promoting this league. The rescue
> > > simulation does not
> > > need the new protocols or new kernel, it needs
> some
> > > new and better
> > > simulators, some simulators which resembles the
> real
> > > world not the
> > > fantastic and imaginary one (Consider the 3D
> soccer
> > > simulation).
> > >
> > > Please consider the aim of the rescue
> simulation, to
> > > help the people
> > > in a disaster environment. Can anybody say
> firmly we
> > > can achieve this
> > > with this system? What are our priorities in the
> > > rescue simulation?
> > > I think we need a good plan for rescue
> simulation.
> > > But the current
> > > habit in the rescue simulation shows that each
> year
> > > before the Robocup
> > > competitions some very quick and abrupt changes
> are
> > > made into the
> > > system. We can observe it in this year even. I
> don't
> > > know why we should have a
> > > buggy and not-completed Kernel in the
> competitions
> > > also why the teams
> > > should be a test bed for the new kernel? It
> > > has so many revealed bugs which mean, it still
> has
> > > some unrevealed
> > > ones. I urge everybody to think about this
> sentence:
> > > Shouldn't we have
> > > a plan for developing and promoting the rescue
> > > simulation step by
> > > step, just like 3D Soccer simulation? And how we
> can
> > > reach to this
> > > plan?
> > > Suppose all of the KNOWN bugs fixed before the
>
=== message truncated ===>
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Received on Fri 15 Jun 2007 - 23:14:47 GMT