Made In Express Winners Announced | The Coffeehouse

fdisk

DarthVista wrote:
Like I said before, I really think everybody's criticisms are unjustified. Robert, Chris and others had to take time away from the busy lives to judge this contest.

Please stop this. It is not contributing anything here.

Does the professor/grand prize winner still have his blog up?

fdisk

Sourcecode wrote:
Source

Shame, did no one look at the code, or stop to think if anyone could have completed this in the time.

I think we have a winner. Check this out from your link...(it's about the robotics team for those who don't know):

Paper wrote:
Fifteen to 20 students of various majors - including computer science and bio-medical, mechanical, computer and industrial engineering - have contributed to the effort in recent years with the intent to compete against other universities at competitions like the upcoming Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Challenge, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and held in September.

Also:

Paper wrote:
The team designed all of the device's software this year using C# (that's C-Sharp), a Microsoft programming language similar to Java. A series of text and code eventually gave the Cub the ability to navigate and avoid obstacles on its own, Gaylor said.

So, let me get this straight. The team is also trying to win a government contract (think big $$) because the Army is interested in unmanned rovers/vehicles. If this particular team gets some good press, so does Microsoft. Now, how does Microsoft get good press? Easy. Sort of let the rules slide a bit for this particular "contest", and then the government looks favorably on the robotics project and Microsoft. So, it's a win-win situation for the robot team and for Microsoft. Using C# in a high profile project like this would surely garner more government contracts/sales, and then Microsoft could also in turn build its defense and build some "good will" in case of any other lawsuits "down the road" with various governments.

Blackheart
'Cause I get the red out, when I take my lead out

fdisk wrote:
So, let me get this straight. The team is also trying to win a government contract (think big $$) because the Army is interested in unmanned rovers/vehicles. If this particular team gets some good press, so does Microsoft. Now, how does Microsoft get good press? Easy. Sort of let the rules slide a bit for this particular "contest", and then the government looks favorably on the robotics project and Microsoft. So, it's a win-win situation for the robot team and for Microsoft. Using C# in a high profile project like this would surely garner more government contracts/sales, and then Microsoft could also in turn build its defense and build some "good will" in case of any other lawsuits "down the road" with various governments.

Holy crap, dude. Did you just get done watching "Enemy of the State" or something?

fdisk

Blackheart wrote:
Holy crap, dude. Did you just get done watching "Enemy of the State" or something?

Read the article. It makes sense now:

a) they refuse change the results in the contest even though the winner is in clear violation of the rules

b) several MS employees have come on here, but all are dodging the main issues and saying we are "attacking them". Huh?

c) Microsoft needs all the good press it can get right now in light of the ongoing EU litigation

d) government contracts can be lucrative, and rovers will potentially become as commonplace as unmanned drones (UAVs). If they use C# as the software, well, you do the math.

Need I go on?

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

fdisk wrote:

Need I go on?

fdisk

No, I'm not saying "it's a conspiracy".

What is your explanation for it?

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

fdisk wrote:
No, I'm not saying "it's a conspiracy".

What is your explanation for it?

They weren't expecting someone to cheat, and so never checked.

And now they're too darned stubborn to admit they were hoodwinked.

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

blowdart wrote:

And now they're too darned stubborn to admit they were hoodwinked.

If you agree w/ Scoble's call for people to be fired if their group doesn't support RSS, what do you think should happen to Mark J?

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

Minh wrote:

blowdart wrote:
And now they're too darned stubborn to admit they were hoodwinked.

If you agree w/ Scoble's call for people to be fired if their group doesn't support RSS, what do you think should happen to Mark J?

I never agreed with Scoble's obcession with RSS, or his relentless self promotion, but I think the person who ran this should take some responsibility instead of doing a hit and run posting on here.

Rossj

Minh wrote:

blowdart wrote:
And now they're too darned stubborn to admit they were hoodwinked.

If you agree w/ Scoble's call for people to be fired if their group doesn't support RSS, what do you think should happen to Mark J?

Too far ...

An apology would do - I'd be really annoyed if Mark suffered any career changing repercussions because of this. I suspect it was just either lack of entries, or like Barry suggested sloppiness in checking entries beyond a superficial glance at the text descriptions.

Obviously it wasn't marked on quality of code as there are some empty files (baring includes) in the source distro. Anyone compiled it yet?

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

blowdart wrote:
...I think the person who ran this should take some responsibility instead of doing a hit and run posting on here.

Mark J doesn't realize the power of geeks with a sense of injustice. I mean, all that pent up sexual energy has to go somewhere.

viron

I will not submit any project for next Express Contest no matter when it will start.

You see I can not compete against MIT lab or NASA projects already running for 2-years!!!

Well the current results were a big disappointment.

Viron.

Oberon

I'm taking a C#/.Net class this semester and the professor recommended downloading the express edition for students who wanted to do their work at home. I'm glad I found out about this now so I don't waste my time on a future contest.

Cornelius Ellsonpeter

viron wrote:
I will not submit any project for next Express Contest no matter when it will start.

You see I can not compete against MIT lab or NASA projects already running for 2-years!!!

Oh come on. We what hobbyist/student dev working alone can't whip out a:

"highly-intelligent robotic vehicle that is able to autonomously navigate complex terrain,"

...complete with...

"C# for a Creative Controller to interface with various sensors on the robot such as cameras and three dimensional stereo vision, laser scanner, digital compass, GPS and all the motion control and artificial intelligence,"

...and then add some...

"advanced architecture for a 'creative control' that uses adaptive critic neural networks to measure the environment, decide on a task and then try to perform this task in an optimum manner"

...in a matter of a few weeks?

http://madeinexpress3.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9A922CD50E2A9EEB!345.entry

Cool

Chadk
excuse me - do you has a flavor?

viron wrote:
I will not submit any project for next Express Contest no matter when it will start.

You see I can not compete against MIT lab or NASA projects already running for 2-years!!!

Well the current results were a big disappointment.

Viron.

Niehter will i. Theres no justice in this.
When theres people like this, theres no chance at all, that you can even get to the contest itself.

I think this was one big failure, and mistake.

Rossj

Cornelius Ellsonpeter wrote:
Oh come on. We what hobbyist/student dev working alone can't whip out a:

"highly-intelligent robotic vehicle that is able to autonomously navigate complex terrain,"

...complete with...

"C# for a Creative Controller to interface with various sensors on the robot such as cameras and three dimensional stereo vision, laser scanner, digital compass, GPS and all the motion control and artificial intelligence,"

...and then add some...

"advanced architecture for a 'creative control' that uses adaptive critic neural networks to measure the environment, decide on a task and then try to perform this task in an optimum manner"

...in a matter of a few weeks?

If they can't they're just not trying. The youth of today.... tssh.

Actually I kind of like the Ali Khalid's entry for the inline translation of MSN Messenger messages, nice, simple, not too hard, potentially big impact. Now if the Messenger team actually implemented so *everyone* had it, it'd be cool (but not before we get A/V on OSX please).

Rossj

Has anyone tried out the newspaper app from Jonas Martinnson? I was wondering what it's like but I am PC-less atm.

CodeMonkey666
Cylons.. Why debugging matters

blowdart wrote:

Oh so breaking rules is ok, as long as it's done in the right spirit?

I agree, a contest for the little guy should not get steamrolled by organized cheaters! I know backpedaling and admitting an oversight is probably out of the question but it would help keep the community a better place.

I guess we all need to get together to start working on next years project now. As long as we have the right marketing potential spirit our 20 professional devs will kick arse. We can even do it on a gotdotnet workspace and solicit help there.

Rossj

CodeMonkey666 wrote:

I guess we all need to get together to start working on next years project now. As long as we have the right marketing potential spirit our 20 professional devs will kick arse. We can even do it on a gotdotnet workspace and solicit help there.

That sounds like a plan. Although I don't think anyone should enter a contest where they have to give away the IPR.

leeappdalecom
.nettter

Jeez you guys can be so petty sometimes, why do you really care?

The comps over!

Who are you to demand answers and statements from judges and such, did you people complaining even bother to enter?

Surlely theres something more constructive and positive you can be spending your time on?

Pathetic Perplexed

Rossj

leeappdalecom wrote:
Jeez you guys can be so petty sometimes, why do you really care?

The comps over!

Why do I care, I can't speak for anyone else, but I believe in playing fair.

leeappdalecom wrote:

Who are you to demand answers and statements from judges and such, did you people complaining even bother to enter?

Who are you to get all high and mighty and start calling things pathetic? We, the ones that are complaining, are the people who put money in Microsoft's pockets by selling their products, building on their products and advocating their products to *our* customers.

C9 is supposed to be a 2-sided conversation, where we express an opinion and someone at Microsoft (and other niners) express their opinion - but you don't *have to* join in ...

UlsterFry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_fry

I can't wait for next years competition, myself and a team of 5 devs are gonna roll our own mars rover in java, we're sure to win Big Smile

I think the honorable thing would be for the Prof (inc. team) and MS to apologise for this almighty c0ck-up.

leeappdalecom
.nettter

Rossj wrote:
Who are you to get all high and mighty and start calling things pathetic?

Not getting high and migtly just calling it how I see it.

Rossj wrote:

C9 is supposed to be a 2-sided conversation, where we express an opinion and someone at Microsoft (and other niners) express their opinion - but you don't *have to* join in ...

Discussion is one thing, this post looks more to me like self important people getting on MS and the judges cases because they have nothing better to do.

As I said earlier just calling it how I see it.

Rossj

leeappdalecom wrote:

Discussion is one thing, this post looks more to me like self important people getting on MS and the judges cases because they have nothing better to do.

As I said earlier just calling it how I see it.

Flip back through the thread, keep a tally of how many people have contributed to this thread and expressed some level of distaste at the outcome. Still think all of those people have *nothing* better to do? Of course they have something else to do, but they care - if they didn't care they probably wouldn't be here and wouldn't be still harping on about it. Would you prefer if this happened out in the big wide world and the Linux guys made a big issue of it, or kept bringing it up time after time? Nope. I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think everyone wants to just get this cleared up.

Any time someone says "Who are you to ...", they are belittling everyone's contribution to the relevant subject, worse you are belittling their value full stop. You might want to find another turn of phrase?

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