Remove ads

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

Reader mode
[X][Tour] No
[X][Robot] No
[X][Prog] Yes (Medium Complexity, High Performance Ceiling, -1 Expense. Week occupied with programming instead of driving. Wetware Performance resets to zero.)
[X][Train] Programming (Make Software roll, if exceeding performance ceiling remaining time will be spent driving)
[X] Backdate engineering logbook (Difficulty: I can just imagine all the difficulties I had, and then write them down. That'll work, right?)(Reward: ???)

Regroup and rethink is probably the order of the day here.
 
[X][Tour] No
[X][Robot] No
[X][Prog] Yes (Medium Complexity, High Performance Ceiling, -1 Expense. Week occupied with programming instead of driving. Wetware Performance resets to zero.)
[X][Train] Programming (Make Software roll, if exceeding performance ceiling remaining time will be spent driving)
[X] Backdate engineering logbook (Difficulty: I can just imagine all the difficulties I had, and then write them down. That'll work, right?)(Reward: ???)
 
Remove ads
Season One: Week Eight
  • Threadmarks
    • [X][Tour] No
    [X][Robot] No
    [X][Prog] Yes (Medium Complexity, High Performance Ceiling, -1 Expense. Week occupied with programming instead of driving. Wetware Performance resets to zero.)
    [X][Train] Programming (Make Software roll, if exceeding performance ceiling remaining time will be spent driving)
    [X] Backdate engineering logbook (Difficulty: I can just imagine all the difficulties I had, and then write them down. That'll work, right?)(Reward: ???)

    You decide to not go to the next tournament. There's no real point, especially considering that you need to reprogram your robot. Rebuilding it into a more complicated way was a stupid way to blow out of the competition, so giving it the best software possible and then getting your sister to master driving it was a far better option for the States Competition in 36 weeks. Oh, and you'd probably have to work on your logbook, but that shouldn't be particularly hard, right?

    A/N: I had no idea how to write this section, so I decided to do it by using relevant skill modified by Social to generate logbook quality.
    You spend the week scribbling in your logbook, updating it to the best of your ability. You leave unsaid the obvious things, of course. You can't waste the judges' precious time with stupid little things like "why use exactly 3/8 inch bolts everywhere", or "why build a six bar". These were all obvious; so all you had to do was describe the problem in implementation. Hm... you didn't really have any problems with implementation, since you knew how everything fit together before you even built it and knew that it would work; maybe you should just write and draw out what's in your head? Ah, that would probably work. The judges were smart, they'd be able to figure it out right?
    When you finally got through all the pretty drawings, you figured that you'd just copy paste your code and comment on the margins, since programming should be even more self evident than building stuff was. With that done, you hand off the notebook to your sister so she can write her notes on driving, and get down to coding a new set. First, you'd need to order some more sensors; your current set just wasn't going to cut it for what you needed to next.

    You spent the week overhauling the systems, focusing only on making the base do whatever you wanted, no matter the position of anything else. You finish that alone, but as of right now nothing else on the robot will really work as intended; you'll probably have to spend another week making it minimally functional at least. You did, however, see some new shortcuts and efficiencies that you were going to use in the future.

    +1 to Software!

    Well, you probably weren't going to the tournament four weeks away at this rate, and you might not even want to go to the one six weeks away.
    Attend the tournament six weeks away?
    [][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [][Tour] No

    Oh! That reminded you; you should check back up on that gofundme...nothing? Nobody donated anything? What the hell? It was so nicely laid out too! (A/N: You guys, uh, rolled a 7 on a d100 for this). Oh well, this wasn't the end of the world, you supposed. You had a fairly steady stream of funding now, so there wouldn't be too much of a problem.

    You sigh. This was a fairly disappointing week overall. You got some minor things done and started an overhaul, but that gofundme coupled with tournament dealt a major slap in the face to you, and to top it all off, once your sister heard you were taking the robot over she went to play with some friends instead of helping you. You shake it off. Now is not the time for doubts. The only thing that was important now was what to do next.

    Free Time! 1 Free Time available per week!
    [] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    [] 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)

    [] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here) (Reward: ???)
    [] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
    [] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all, kinda want to do this anyway) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check)
    [] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)
     
  • Threadmarks
    • huhYeahGoodPoint said:
    A/N: I had no idea how to write this section, so I decided to do it by using relevant skill modified by Social to generate logbook quality.
    You spend the week scribbling in your logbook, updating it to the best of your ability. You leave unsaid the obvious things, of course. You can't waste the judges' precious time with stupid little things like "why use exactly 3/8 inch bolts everywhere", or "why build a six bar". These were all obvious; so all you had to do was describe the problem in implementation. Hm... you didn't really have any problems with implementation, since you knew how everything fit together before you even built it and knew that it would work; maybe you should just write and draw out what's in your head? Ah, that would probably work. The judges were smart, they'd be able to figure it out right?
    When you finally got through all the pretty drawings, you figured that you'd just copy paste your code and comment on the margins, since programming should be even more self evident than building stuff was. With that done, you hand off the notebook to your sister so she can write her notes on driving, and get down to coding a new set.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    This logbook is going to be impenetrable...


    [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.
     
    [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.

    We need to get our sister to tutor us in the secrets of social or have her be the recruiter.
     
    [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.

    6 weeks is definitely workable. 4 weeks, not so much.
     
    [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.
     
    [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.

    We have to win one of the tournaments to get the invite to state anyway.
     
    [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.
     
    [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.
     
    Season One: Week Nine
  • Threadmarks
    • [X][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
    [X] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)
    -[X] Actually, have your sister do it. The less you talk to him the less likely you are going to try to set each other on fire.

    A/N: Updating shipping charts...shipping and handling of course.:whistle:

    You make your decision. Waiting longer would do you no favors for earning a states ticket, so it'd be best to start earlier. You were attending the tournament in five weeks now.

    "Yo, sis, can you do a favor for me?"

    "Sure, what is it?"

    "You seemed to make a good impression on Ahmad, mind trying to recruit him?"

    There's a pause.

    "I'll see what I can do."
    Gah, what was with your robot and the damned control loop integration?! You were so damned close to getting it all working together! All of the parts and subsystems individually worked within tolerances, so why the hell was the whole thing such a mess?! In frustration, you decide to go pester your sister about recruiting Ahmad.

    "I'm working on it sis, trust me. I just wish he'd stop being so damned stubborn, always getting up and leaving right as I start getting him in the mo...."

    Your sister's face flames. You stop hiding your giggles and let the tears flow out as you desperately gasp for more air to feed your laughter.

    "S-Shut up, you know I didn't mean it that way!"

    "Of course you didn't, dearest sister~"

    "T-That's really creepy, you know. I won't do it if you keep bugging me like this."

    Reluctantly, you let your shark grin fall into a nice Category Four death glare.

    "Fine, fine, is this better?"

    "Much, sis."

    Well, this certainly worked as a diversion. You're much less frustrated now.
    Your sis is giddy. There's really only one reason why she's giggling in your direction, so you hug her in congratulations.

    "He'll come over on Sunday to check out our team."

    Heh, that was some good news. Nothing else for it, you supposed. Just time to prepare.

    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)

    [] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here) (Reward: ???)
    [] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
    [] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all, kinda want to do this anyway) (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)
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)

    More programming, moar!

    Shore up our weaknesses, although I think software only loosely counts as a "weakness" for us.
     

    [X] 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)
     
    Season One: Week Ten
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)

    The doorbell rings, but that's not your concern. You finally got the code to work as a unified whole, albeit barely and with a lot of hacks and cheats that you'd probably take out later. You can hear Ahmad and your sister chatting to the door, and you adjust the arm kP up another tenth.

    "I'm not surprised, Colene."

    You continue typing, disregarding his existence. He's not contributing anything useful here, so he can leave.

    ...

    You may have let that slip. Whoops.

    "So you think I can't program?"

    Not really, nerd. Oh, you did it again, didn't you?

    "You're one to talk, holed up here without even turning on the lights!"

    You shrug. This conversation was going nowhere, so you let it die and continue adjusting the kP. It overcompensated last movement, perhaps you should adjust it back down?

    "Dumbass, don't adjust the kP when your problem is kI maxing out motor power towards the end."

    You glare at him. Didn't he see the integral control not two lines before setting the motor power?

    "Doesn't matter. That kI is still too high, you should adjust the threshold lower. How did you even come up with that stupid threshold anyway?"

    You think about it some more, and you wince. Damn, you had just copied them over from the base threshold instead of adjusting it for the arm.

    "Yeah, yeah, wiseass, laugh it up," you say, cheeks burning as you rewrite your constants for the arm.

    "Matylda, when did Satan open a ski resort?"

    "Fuck off, I can listen to good advice."

    "Oh, and by the way, your motor functions are dumb, capping your motors' rate of acceleration will make your PID loop slower."

    "It's called slew rate control, dumbass, but I guess your garbage robot would never need it since all your motors would break from how shitty the construction was."

    "And all is right with the world again."

    "Did you not hear me telling you to fuck off the first time, dumbass?"

    "But why do that when I can continue messing with you?"

    You grit your teeth. Sure, he was helpful, and he stuck to your image of him, but goddamn, would it kill him to not be an asshole?

    (she thinks, blissfully unaware of the truth about her)

    Hm, that was an interesting way of tuning the PID loop that you saw. From what it looked like, it's probably a little more efficient than your current method, so you'll use it from now on.

    +101 one time bonus to Software!
    Much as you are loath to admit it, Ahmad makes a significant contribution to your progress this week, as you go from barely functioning at the beginning of the week to actually pretty good by your standards at the end of the week. Cooperating with him gave you some new insights into how all the systems fit together, and would definitely make doing this easier in the future.

    +1 to Software!

    Your sister continues to work her black magic on Ahmad, convincing him to stay on your team. Mrs. Conner simply remarks that its lucky your sister handled his recruitment instead of you, and that it certainly simplifies things on her end. Well, you're pretty happy with this week, you note in your log, and you're pretty sure you're going to annihilate the competition four weeks from now.

    Use bonus?
    [][Bonus] Yes
    [][Bonus] No

    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)

    [] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here) (Reward: ???)
    [] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
    [] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all, kinda want to do this anyway) (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)

    A/N: I can certainly handle writing only one week at a time, but I will note that you should be prepared for a lot of updates like this, or maybe not even as long.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Chat with Mrs. Conner (Difficulty: I literally see her almost every day) (Reward: ???)

    She has often given us good advice and hopefully will help remove some more of our rough edges.
     
    huhYeahGoodPoint said:
    You finally got the code to work as a unified hole, albeit barely and with a lot of hacks and cheats that you'd probably take out later.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I've seen code like that...

    [X][Bonus] Yes
    [X] Chat with Mrs. Conner (Difficulty: I literally see her almost every day) (Reward: ???)

    Well, I have no issues with faster advance, but this pacing is pretty safe for a quest.
    The big danger with advancing more time per update is feeling like you need to add more actions, which bloats the narrative load per update, which stresses QMs and lead to motivation loss.

    If you wanted to boost the rate of advance, I'd recommend keeping the number of actions and throw in a random event or something.
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top