Bolts, Steel, Code, and Joysticks: A Competitive Robotics Quest

hYGP · Dec 31, 2017

A/N: Thanks guys. There is a narrative way to combine the two results though, don't worry. Also, you rolled a 2 out of 10 on your improvement roll, so uh, yeah, that book isn't doing jack.

Read your books, they said. They'd make you better at talking to people, they said. Colene could now confirm that those were one hundred twenty percent lying, just like Ahmad's bragging about making top 500 players in some game or another. No way he was actually that good; if he was, well, why wasn't he rich?

Besides, it was the dumbest shit too. "Don't insult people, ever"? Seriously? If they couldn't handle a little criticism every now and then, they needed to toughen up, not babied. It's just the truth; why should they be hurt by it?

(a traitorous part of her mind said no wonder you have no friends)

Now, if she could just find where Matylda had hidden the goddamn logbook, she could get back to doing that, instead of reading this garbage.

Oh well. At least it was more interesting than reading about some girl in Brooklyn. Seriously, when was that ever going to be a useful life skill?

At least the team was doing far better; Ahmad beelined for the computer, showing some good initiative. You and Matylda worked on making the robot perfect, one nut at a time.

It was nice, Colene thought. The hum of silent activity fit her far better than the enforced silent murmur that her classes usually ended up as, and was way better than the noise and bustle of parties that Matylda seemed to revel in.

"Kay, sis, that's as good as it's gonna get."

"Yeah. Good work."

Out of the corner of her eye, Colene saw Matylda freeze for a moment, before moving as if that hadn't happened, hands just slightly faster than before.

"What? Colene, giving out compliments? Matylda, when did the world turn upside down?"

"Shut up, it's not that funny!"

"He has a point, sis."

They managed to keep the silence for a second before breaking into giggling.

"Alright, hand over the computer, wise guy."

Ahmad did, giggling the whole time.

"And would you two stop giggling!"

The two obliged her in the worst possible way: bursting into full-on, genuinely rolling on the floor laughter.

"I hate you too."

"Love -ha- you -ha- too!"

Well, those assholes certainly didn't make your job easier. You do have a decision to make right now, though: how complex do you want your code to be?
Code Complexity:
[][CC] Extremely Low Complexity
[][CC] Low Complexity
[][CC] Medium Complexity
[][CC] High Complexity
~~[][CC] Extremely High Complexity~~ ahahaha can your controller even handle what this would require?

Well, you had best choose well, seeing as there was another tournament six weeks away, and the ever looming deadline of States was 28 weeks away.

Free Time! 1 Free Time available per week!
[] Recruit at your school (Difficulty: Should be pretty easy, right? Everybody will want to join me, robotics is great and I'm so good at it!) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Recruit in the wild (Difficulty: I dunno, randomly looking for people probably isn't a good idea, and they probably aren't that great) (Reward: ??? teammate)

[] Try to get corporate sponsorships (Difficulty: Those suits will be falling all over themselves to support a new cool STEM program, right?) (Reward: ??? Revenue)
[] Try to get money from friends and family (Difficulty: Huh, my immediate family's pretty receptive. I wonder if my distant relatives are the same?) (Rewards: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get donations from random people (Difficulty: It worked for the Girl Scouts, why won't it work for me?) (Reward: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get a job (Difficulty: Some minimum wage job should be willing to hire fourteen year olds, right?)(Reward: 1 Revenue)

[] Rewrite logbook (Difficulty: At least starting over makes this easier, I guess?) (Reward: Better logbook??)
[] Figure out how to prevent disasters like what just happened (Difficulty: Okay, so I might be forgetting some of the details)(Reward: Increased Disaster Resistance)

[] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: I can read! It's just the whole talking part is hard...)(Reward: Social?)

[] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here, right?) (Reward: ???)

[] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
[] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check)
[] Chat with Mrs. Conner (Difficulty: I literally see her almost every day) (Reward: ???)
[] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)[/B][/Code][/B]

hYGP · Jan 3, 2018

A/N: This may come as a surprise, but the action explicitly labeled "Increases Disaster Resistance" increases Disaster Resistance. As is, your logbook is a poor substitute, given, uh, the way you write logbooks. I also reformatted the options at the bottom, let me know what you think.

[W] [CC] High Complexity
[W] Logbook

Okay, if you wanted your logbook back you were going to need to resort to drastic measures. Time to stop holding back. If you were your sister, how would you hide your logbook from your sister?

By hiding it somewhere you either didn't know about, couldn't access, or weren't willing to go to.

If you didn't know about where it was, you had to assume it was inside the house, or somewhere easily accessible. After all, if your sister hid it somewhere you couldn't access but she could, then you were going to need to do something unthinkable, like ask your sister, or worse, your parents, for where logbook was.

That was an unacceptable outcome.

The other alternative was that it was somewhere you knew, but weren't willing to go into. Both could be true at once; you could find out about it and be temporarily unwilling to go there.

Either way, this called for a search, beginning with the most likely of locations: her bedroom!

...

It was under her pillow.

It was under her pillow.

You feel incredibly dumb.

And with that cheery note, Colene set about updatin the logbook, making sure not to waste the judges' time with small execution details like Matylda did, because the judges only had so much time, after all; why not abbreviate it, and save the judges some time?

After all, they could just figure out that the variable "t" meant "duration of event" in this context, and "change in time" in this one! Perfectly clear.

...

Was it?

...

This doubt was wasting time, when there was more logbook to update!

"...This is harder than I thought."

"Oh? What's this I hear? Colene, humble? I can only have so many world-shattering events a week, ya know."

"How 'bout you go off in a corner and think of a new insult with those two precious brain cells you got?"

"Stop fighting you two! Geez, I leave you alone for a week and this happens!"

"No, but seriously, I'm the best out of all of us at programming, and I'm telling you it'll take at least another two weeks to even get any of this to work."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

"Ugh, fine. You know, I could always improvise as a driver..."

Code Complexity: Uh oh, it looks like you might've bitten off a little more than you can chew!
[] [CC] Downgrade to Medium Complexity
[] [CC] Minor Complexity shift to Driver
[] [CC] Major Complexity shift to Driver
[] [CC] Keep calm, carry on. (Continue programming)

"Alright, with that out of the way, are we going to the tournament five weeks away?"

Local Tournament; remember, you're already qualified for States, 27 weeks away
[] [Tour] Go (-1 Expense)
[] [Tour] No go
[] [Tour] Too early to decide

Free Time! 1 Free Time available per week!

[] Recruit at your school (Difficulty: Should be pretty easy, right? Everybody will want to join me, robotics is great and I'm so good at it!) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Recruit in the wild (Difficulty: I dunno, randomly looking for people probably isn't a good idea, and they probably aren't that great) (Reward: ??? teammate)

[] Try to get corporate sponsorships (Difficulty: Those suits will be falling all over themselves to support a new cool STEM program, right?) (Reward: ??? Revenue)
[] Try to get money from friends and family (Difficulty: Huh, my immediate family's pretty receptive. I wonder if my distant relatives are the same?) (Rewards: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get donations from random people (Difficulty: It worked for the Girl Scouts, why won't it work for me?) (Reward: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get a job (Difficulty: Some minimum wage job should be willing to hire fourteen year olds, right?)(Reward: 1 Revenue)

[] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: I can read! It's just the whole talking part is hard...)(Reward: Social?)

[] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
[] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check)
[] Rewrite logbook (Difficulty: At least starting over makes this easier, I guess?) (Reward: Better logbook??)

[] Chat with Mrs. Conner (Difficulty: I literally see her almost every day) (Reward: ???)
[] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here, right?) (Reward: ???)

[] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)

hYGP · Jan 8, 2018

[X] [CC] Minor Complexity Shift to Driver
[X] [Tour] Go (-1 Expense)
[X] ~~Logbook~~ ahahah your team isn't letting you touch it. Darn, guess you have to read that book after all.

A/N: Since the tie wasn't getting broken I decided to rule it this way; justification will be given in update.

"Look at it this way, Colene; since we've decided for whatever reason to go to this next tournament, we're gonna need to get that code done ASAP. And besides, for the last few times it's brain frickin dead to drive; I can deal with making it a little trickier to handle."

"Okay, okay, I got it."

Programming Complexity Limit lowered!

Driver Complexity increased!

"Hey Colene?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did we ever let you touch the logbook?"

"Because I'm the best at everything?"

"If what I'm reading is right, no, you have no frickin clue how to write useful documentation in any way whatsoever. Your sister's right, we can't have you writing in this without you getting way better with considering how the logbook's user is gonna use it."

"Seriously?"

"Deadly."

A/N: I gave you that book for a reason, and today it delivers, making you almost 50% better at talking.

With an exasperated eye, Colene reread How to Win Friends and Influence People.Yet again, every word on the page seemed to be slipping by, as they had before.

Colene sighed. She wasn't actually getting better at doing anything but reading the same lines in bed over and over again. Flopping down, Colene looked up the star painted ceiling and wondered what she did wrong; she had been right when it came to who was the best at everything except talking to people. But why was she so bad at talking to people?

Out of ideas and frustrated that her mind kept spinning on, knowing she wouldn't get any sleep for a while anyway, Colene cracked open the accursed book to a random page on a whim.

On the page, as if to laugh at her, in black bold and framed:

The only way to get man to do anything is to arouse in him an eager want.
A/N: I'll probably edit this for accuracy if I've gotten it wrong

Something seemed familiar about it.

"Consider how the user uses it."

Colene frowned. That was just common sense, wasn't it?

But then she thought of the logbook again; the simplifications, the abbreviations she'd littered in all over the place, writing the whole thing in her own shorthand?

And, and, just yesterday demanding the computer instead of pointing out how her own use might be more beneficial to the team?

Oh.

Oh geez.

Colene could do a whole lot better, couldn't she?

"Alright, all systems functional!"

There's four weeks left, and the clock's ticking. Do you hand the robot off for Ahmad to work his magic?

[] [Switch] Yes (stops Programming Actions, starts Driving)
[] [Switch] No (continues Programming)

Free Time! 1 Free Time available per week!

[] Recruit at your school (Difficulty: Should be pretty easy, right? Everybody will want to join me, robotics is great and I'm so good at it!) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Recruit in the wild (Difficulty: I dunno, randomly looking for people probably isn't a good idea, and they probably aren't that great) (Reward: ??? teammate)

[] Try to get corporate sponsorships (Difficulty: Those suits will be falling all over themselves to support a new cool STEM program, right?) (Reward: ??? Revenue)
[] Try to get money from friends and family (Difficulty: Huh, my immediate family's pretty receptive. I wonder if my distant relatives are the same?) (Rewards: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get donations from random people (Difficulty: It worked for the Girl Scouts, why won't it work for me?) (Reward: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get a job (Difficulty: Some minimum wage job should be willing to hire fourteen year olds, right?)(Reward: 1 Revenue)

[] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: I can read! It's just the whole talking part is hard...)(Reward: Social?)

[] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
[] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check)
[] Logbook entries! (Difficulty: At least starting over makes this easier, I guess?) (Reward: Better logbook??)

[] Chat with Mrs. Conner (Difficulty: I literally see her almost every day) (Reward: ???)
[] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here, right?) (Reward: ???)

[] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)

hYGP · Jan 9, 2018

[X] [Switch] No (continues Programming)
[X] Write in : Figure out how to manage your time better (More actions per week)

"No, Ahmad, you don't get to drive yet, dammit!"

"But the tournament's literally four weeks away!"

"Yeah, but we're not losing autonomous so you can drive!"

"Fine, fine..."

"Mrs. Connelly, would you mind giving me some advice?"

"What would you need, Colene?"

"I keep feeling like I don't have enough time to do the things I want. Could you help me with that?"

"Well, there's one thing I can think of that's really obvious, and a few others that might not be so obvious."

"Yeah?"

"The big one is to stop babysitting my daughter, but I'd like to first find someone else to do it and I can't really pay you for doing nothing either. It does free up a lot of time for you, though."

"Huh."

"There's a few other things, but honestly they're probably not worth trying right now; anything else is just going to be small potatoes compared to just not babysitting anymore."

Do you?
[] [Baby] Quit right now (+1 Free Time per week, - 1 Revenue, probable Mrs. Connelly disapproval)
[] [Baby] Quit next week (+1 Free Time starting next week, -1 Revenue starting next week, disapproval unlikely)
[] [Baby] Don't quit

"Are you ready to let me drive yet? There's only three weeks left, you know."

[] [Switch] Yes (stops Programming, starts Wetware)
[] [Switch] No (Continue Programming)

Free Time! 1 Free Time available per week! (unless, of course, you picked quit right now, in which case you get to backfill one action)

[] Recruit at your school (Difficulty: Should be pretty easy, right? Everybody will want to join me, robotics is great and I'm so good at it!) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Recruit in the wild (Difficulty: I dunno, randomly looking for people probably isn't a good idea, and they probably aren't that great) (Reward: ??? teammate)

[] Try to get corporate sponsorships (Difficulty: Those suits will be falling all over themselves to support a new cool STEM program, right?) (Reward: ??? Revenue)
[] Try to get money from friends and family (Difficulty: Huh, my immediate family's pretty receptive. I wonder if my distant relatives are the same?) (Rewards: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get donations from random people (Difficulty: It worked for the Girl Scouts, why won't it work for me?) (Reward: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get a job (Difficulty: Some minimum wage job should be willing to hire fourteen year olds, right?)(Reward: 1 Revenue)

[] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: I can read! It's just the whole talking part is hard...)(Reward: Social?)

[] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
[] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check)
[] Logbook entries! (Difficulty: At least starting over makes this easier, I guess?) (Reward: Better logbook??)

[] Chat with Mrs. Conner (Difficulty: I literally see her almost every day) (Reward: ???)
[] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here, right?) (Reward: ???)

[] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)

hYGP · Jan 10, 2018

[X] [Baby] Quit next week (+1 Free Time starting next week, -1 Revenue starting next week, disapproval unlikely)
[X] [Switch] Yes (stops Programming, starts Wetware)
[X] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: I can read! It's just the whole talking part is hard...)(Reward: Social?)

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to take you up on that. I just don't feel like there's enough hours in the day, you know?"

Mrs. Connelly sighed.

"Alright, I understand."

"Thanks, Mrs. Connelly."

"Yeah. Go nuts."

Ahmad's face lit up.

"Sweet."

The way he drives makes it clear too; every movement he makes gets sharper, the robot flying around the field in a way Colene knew was only possible due to the changes Colene made.

At this rate, this tournament's gonna be a cinch.

After realizing what a goldmine that book was, Colene picked up "How to Win Friends and Influence People" again. Sure, she was reading it almost every week, but dammit it worked last time!

Only for all the words to slide in her brain and right out, this week.

Why was self-improvement so haaard?

"Damn. We're back in business."

Ahmad bumped Colene's extended fist.

"Yep. Now watch me make this thing fly."

Free Time! 2 Free Time available per week!

[] Recruit at your school (Difficulty: Should be pretty easy, right? Everybody will want to join me, robotics is great and I'm so good at it!) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Recruit in the wild (Difficulty: I dunno, randomly looking for people probably isn't a good idea, and they probably aren't that great) (Reward: ??? teammate)

[] Try to get corporate sponsorships (Difficulty: Those suits will be falling all over themselves to support a new cool STEM program, right?) (Reward: ??? Revenue)
[] Try to get money from friends and family (Difficulty: Huh, my immediate family's pretty receptive. I wonder if my distant relatives are the same?) (Rewards: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get donations from random people (Difficulty: It worked for the Girl Scouts, why won't it work for me?) (Reward: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get a job (Difficulty: Some minimum wage job should be willing to hire fourteen year olds, right?)(Reward: 1 Revenue)

[] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: It worked! Well, once, but it'll work again, right?)(Reward: Social?)

[] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+) (note: requires doing Software that week)
[] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check) (note: requires doing Hardware that week)
[] Logbook entries! (Difficulty: At least starting over makes this easier, I guess?) (Reward: Better logbook??)

[] Chat with Mrs. Conner (Difficulty: Well, this is awkward) (Reward: ???)
[] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here, right?) (Reward: ???)

[] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)

hYGP · Jan 12, 2018

Week 1
[X] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: It worked! Well, once, but it'll work again, right?)(Reward: Social?)
[X] Logbook entries! (Difficulty: At least starting over makes this easier, I guess?) (Reward: Better logbook??)

Week 2
[X] Read How to Win Friends and Influence People (Difficulty: It worked! Well, once, but it'll work again, right?)(Reward: Social?)
[X] Logbook entries! (Difficulty: At least starting over makes this easier, I guess?) (Reward: Better logbook??)

It felt satisfying, Colene felt, to get better. Sure, reading that same old book over and over again was getting annoying, but it was working, and that was what mattered. Sure, her sister could still talk circles around her, and her sister kept getting things that she didn't, but talking to people was starting to make sense!

But what really made Colene happy was getting to do logbook and read at the same time. It was so frustrating, she mused, to only be able to really do one thing well before. Now, though, she could fit everything she wanted in!

Satisfied with her progress on the book, Colene turned her attention to the logbook.

What was she supposed to say, anyway? She didn't know what sorceries Ahmad was doing, and that was pretty much all Ahmad's work. If she didn't know what was going on, how was she supposed to write anything?

Well, what'd the book have to say? 'If you need something from them, make the other person feel important?' Colene could do it herself, but that felt icky in a way. On the other hand, Colene could recruit her sister in to help with the whole thing, which...huh.

It probably would work out pretty well, now that Colene thought about it.

"So you need my help, sis?"

"Yeah, I need your help. I need to get something in the logbook, but I need to get Ahmad to help me here."

"Aw, you want to spend time with Ahmad instead of me?"

"I'm not saying that I enjoy talking with him, it's just that I need to talk to him."

"Kidding, kidding! Seriously, you're so serious all the time Colene,"

"Hi, Mattie! How are you?"

"This is Colene here, and I did not need to know that."

"Oh. It's you."

"Look, I need your help with something."

"Yeah? Whaddya need?"

"Well, you're our driver, so I need your skill to help me write the logbook."

"Alright sure, I'll help."

"Okay, sis, run this by me again?"

"Ahmad's saying his turns are improving and he's getting better at picking up objects."

"Okay, how?"

"By...not missing?"

"Alright, say that then!"

A/N: The hell did you guys do to piss the RNG off so bad? Your 3d100 for disasters, lower numbers are worse, came in at 35! I'm not sure how this even works at this point! I'll probably rule this as logbook saving you as pseudo version control, but sheesh.

Something was really wrong. The moment you heard a grating sound and the robot not moving the way it was supposed to, you shut the robot off, remembering what happened last time.

"Ahmad, load up the debugging program!"

"Do we have time?"

"Do you want to compete or not?"

"Fine! Just don't blame me if we have to sit a match or three out!"

"Besides, what are you gonna do anyway?"

"Just shut up and let me look at this stuff!"

It's...not looking great. As far as you can tell, you'll be able to fix it by lunch, but you'll probably have to sit out half your matches. You could restore less of it, which'll take less time.

What do you save?
[] All of it (Cannot participate before Match Nineteen)
[] Most of it (Downgrade to Medium Complexity, cannot participate before Match Ten)
[] Whatever you can before matches start (Downgrade to a halfstep beneath Medium Complexity, participate in all matches)

A/N: I swear, disaster resistance is getting pretty insanely useful here.

Bolts, Steel, Code, and Joysticks: A Competitive Robotics Quest

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