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Misleading: They actually placed 3rd behind MIT in the actual challenge

posted 10 years ago by The_Real_Review
61 replies | jump to latest

Based on how this was hyped, it now appears incredibly controversial as to why the Carl Hayden High School won this competition. In the actual underwater challenge they finished 3rd behind MIT which completed the most challenges. So in effect MIT still had the best robot but since the competition also factored in their engineering interview and a review of each group's technical manual they somehow won the entire competition. I am incredibly suspicious that MIT did a worse job in the engineering interview or with their technical manual. Not buying this since at the end of the day the robot that can complete the most challenges should be the winning robot. Sorry but it seems like it was handed to them.

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/robot.html?pg=4

Further evidence this is misleading BS. If the Carl Hayden Team was really full of engineering geniuses they would be employed as such.

Carl Hayden Team (Luis Aranda, Lorenzo Santillan, Cristian Arcega, Oscar Vazquez)

Where are these engineering geniuses now?

Luis Aranda - Janitor
Lorenzo Santillan - Line Cook
Cristian Arcega - Worked at Home Depot
Oscar Vazquez - Railroad Foreman

MIT Team (Kurt Stiehl, Lauren Cooney, Jordan Stanway, Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner)

Kurt Stiehl - Product Design Manager at Apple Inc.
Lauren Cooney - Embedded Software Engineer at Teledyne Webb Research
Jordan Stanway - Postdoctoral Fellow at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner - Mechanical Engineer at Bluefin Robotics

[–] Sexy-Nerd 9 years ago

From the article:

"This was the engineering review?professionals in underwater engineering evaluated all the ROVs, scored each team?s technical documentation, and grilled students about their designs. The results counted for more than half of the total possible points in the contest."

?How?d you make the laser range finder work?? Swean growled. MIT had admitted earlier that a laser would have been the most accurate way to measure distance underwater, but they?d concluded that it would have been difficult to implement.

?We used a helium neon laser, captured its phase shift with a photo sensor, and manually corrected by 30 percent to account for the index of refraction,? Cristian answered rapidly, keyed up on adrenaline. Cameron had peppered them with questions on the drive to Santa Barbara, and Cristian was ready.

Swean raised a bushy, graying eyebrow. He asked about motor speed, and Lorenzo sketched out their combination of controllers and spike relays. Oscar answered the question about signal interference in the tether by describing how they?d experimented with a 15-meter cable before jumping up to one that was 33 meters."

[–] Darth-VeX 9 years ago

The reason the engineering interview and review of the tech manual are valued so high is because the interview confirms that the competitors understand and can communicate the engineering concepts used to build/design their product. On top of that, the technical manual is KEY to engineering projects because ...

Even if you build the best robot, if another engineer can't pick up the manual, read it, and operate it ... it's a useless piece of crap. Any engineer worth his nuts will tell you that the most important thing when buying a new piece of equipment is the MANUAL--because without it, you're just GUESSING on how to use it.

---
Matthew 5:5 - Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit Middlearth.

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

That is pure BS, engineers are notorious for not reading manuals. I know this first hand having some in my family. At the end of the day their robot sucked compared to MITs. And I do not buy for a second that MIT did poorly in the engineering interview or technical manual.

[–] super-staff 9 years ago

I've been trying to find information on this competition online but haven't found anything (other than stuff from the movie itself), can you provide any links to such? I'd like to read more on what happened in the actual competition.

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

There is a link to an article in Wired in my original post in this thread. Look up.

[–] super-staff 9 years ago

Oh, pfft. I didn't notice it (I tend to see those as just signature links). Thanks, though!

[–] MarkInArizona 9 years ago

Also, the real teacher was really TWO teachers and neither is Latino.

[–] OccamsBarber 9 years ago

The interview also helps determine whether the team as opposed to their adviser or other vested parties developed and built the robot.

"Say yes with your voice, not just your eyes."

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

Oh please, you are trying to tell me the MIT students did not make their own robot but a bunch of disadvantaged kids who never went on to even attend college did?

[–] OccamsBarber 9 years ago

No, that was not what I was trying to tell you at all. Please read again.

"Say yes with your voice, not just your eyes."

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] OccamsBarber 9 years ago

That would definitely be an important factor too. Shows ingenuity.

"It's the Viking era."
"That explains the Laser Raptors."

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

Incorrect, the competition was not about who could build the most cost effective robot.

[–] ent0r 9 years ago

Read the competition rules. It's actually explained there that you shouldn't simply pur as much money into your robot as possible.

But it's hopeless with you. You don't want to factcheck, you just want disparage the win of the Hayden team.

Well their win is on record and immortalised on celluloid, so it doesn't matter what ypu think anyway.

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

I am well aware of the rules but at the end of the day the competition is about the performance of the robots, which is why the entire MIT team has engineering jobs and the illegal immigrants do not.

[–] nammage 8 years ago

They don't have engineering jobs because they are not engineers. Do the every day person who builds a robot to fight, an engineer? Is the kids who convert lawn mowers into motorcycles engineers? Please with your rhetoric.

-Nam

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

You seem confused about the purpose of this contest.

[–] Nipsey_Russell 8 years ago

You seem very offended by this movie, it's hilarious
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/bml.gif

The IMDB message boards you either die a good poster,or live long enough to become the troll

[–] AmosNomore 9 years ago

But it's hopeless with you.

He didn't buy any of it, now he's terribly frustrated that he can't get a refund. What a handwringing crybaby.

[–] italianpride17 9 years ago

You really can't grasp the concepts of sample size and confirmation bias can you?

Looking at your posts on your IMDB history you apparently get a hard on for stirring the pots on message boards. Holy cow must your life be a pitiful cesspool of loneliness.

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

I find it disturbing that you are stalking me online.

[–] llienomit 9 years ago

The competition is composed of multiple events. That's the structure, regardless of your opinion or conspiracy theory.

These guys showed they could build a functioning device that performed as well or better than other teams with a build budget 5% of what others had. The build budget and simplicity are often overlooked but are a significant part of the evaluation/objectives. Their documentation and understanding of the components were also given top marks.

The documentary Underwater Dreams gives a pretty good representation of the actual events.

---Listen, ..do you smell something?---

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

They made a robot that performed worse and likely got a sympathy win.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] OccamsBarber 9 years ago

professionals in underwater engineering evaluated all the ROVs, scored each team's technical documentation, and grilled students about their designs. The results counted for more than half of the total possible points in the contest.

So you are saying that they made these rules three years in advance on the chance that a disadvantaged high school team might come along?

As opposed to the plausible explanation of creating rules that would make it much harder for their schools to cheat - making sure the students actually designed, built and understood the machine.

"Say yes with your voice, not just your eyes."

[–] ent0r 9 years ago

Thete is a documentary, "underwater dreams", that dass the following.
There were 30 judges.
The MIT team was also interviewed in the documentary and they said they botched the technical report, because it was done as an afterthought. They knew they had the superior robot, but they failed to " sell" it to the judges. It's something that mirrors real life. No matter how superior your product is. If you fail to make the consumer und er stand why it is besteht for him, you will fail.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ent0r 9 years ago

In real life the Hayden team won the competition.
The MIT team and the other 11 competitors were composed out oft peple who were already enrolled into college.
The Hayden team were only high school kids who manager to place 3rd out of 12 college teams in the underwater challenger and managed to succedd in the liquidsucking challenger wäre the Mit team failed.

Their careers nowadays doesn't diminish this accomplishment, no matter how jealous you are.

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

Their current careers demonstrate their actual abilities (which are limited) not the propaganda floating around this film.

[–] skymoscow 9 years ago

Ja, schon!

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

MIT did not "think" they had a superior robot, they had proven they had the superior robot by placing first in the underwater challenge. The rest is irrelevant, a robotics company hires engineers to make their robots and salesmen to sell them.

You are correct the Carl Hayden team are better salesmen than the real engineers from MIT.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

How do you know what my profession is? Which robot completed the most tasks in the competition?

I do not believe being a good salesmen is a requirement for being a good engineer and their latter professions support my argument.

[–] nammage 8 years ago

I know you're not an engineer because if you were then your ego, as it is, wouldn't allow you to not state such a thing. Plus, in the documentary topic (that you most likely haven't watched based on your copy/paste of this topic) you state you have family who are engineers, which makes you think you're an authority on the subject.

-Nam

I am on the road less traveled...

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

I am an authority on the subject.

[–] Doc80 8 years ago

If all you needed to win was to have the best robot, they wouldn't have an interview portion of the competition. I don't know if it actually happened or not but one of the questions asked in the movie to one of the MIT people was "can you explain that in layman terms" or something to that effect. The character stood there dumbfounded. See, it's not enough to actually design and build a machine, you have to be able to explain how it works using language that non-engineers can understand because at some point, it won't be an engineer trying to use that machine.

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

In the real world, tech companies have salesmen for marketing which are the jobs the Carl Hayden team would likely be employed as.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] krispy23 9 years ago

Don't be so butt hurt. Just because the MIT team got better jobs in the end doesn't mean they should have won the competition. There's so many other circumstances. Also, if what they said in the movie is true and the Carl Hayden Team all were illegal immigrants, then naturally they are at a socioeconomical disadvantage to begin with and are less likely to be able to get jobs at large legitimate companies.

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

That is a strawman argument, I never claimed that they should have won because they got better jobs. My argument was they should have won because they had a better robot. The fact that they got better jobs shows who were the true engineers in the competition and which team likely had most of their work done by their coaches.

There are work visas for a reason, so large legitimate companies can hire talent from outside the country - clearly no one on the Carl Hayden team was talented.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

The competition was not who can build the more cost effective robot and come in third in the physical challenge. Not a single one of the members of MIT have lost their jobs.

[–] italianpride17 9 years ago

What most engineers do these days is completely useless looking for ways to make people fatter and lazier through automating things.

The work the Hayden kids went on to do though low on the totem poll in your caste system eyes is far more useful.

Engineers are the most overrated people on the planet. My lack of being impressed with them is why I don't get on roller coasters.

Also I went to Penn State and was in a dorm with several engineers, they are terrible awkward socially and are really one dimensional smart.

You put them on an island with no access to modern tech or instruments and they would die in days. Survival skills require functional intelligence which the MIT grads lack in spades.

[–] The_Real_Review 9 years ago

If not for engineers you would not be able to make the post you just did.

I can cook my own food and find what I need by myself at Home Depot so I do not find them useful. Inflating your importance in life is being in denial.

I would love to see actual engineers on an island, instead of the jokers they put on reality TV shows.

[–] HOKfilms 9 years ago

How stupid is this Real Review guy. The competition consists of two parts. Robot and the Interview. You not only have to build it, you have to explain it. If all that mattered was the robot itself, then there wouldnt even be an interview part of the competition.

While its hard to believe MIT would lose a robotics competition to a kids using pool noodles, these kids built a robot that nearly completed just as many tasks as MITs that nearly cost 20K. If dumb kids can build a robot for 800 bucks that could complete more tasks than most of the colleges and score only 10pts fewer than MITs dont you think that plays of the part of the competition? Dont you think ingenuity and creativity is scored during the interview process? If it were just about the robot, they'd just had the price to the coolest looking robot that cost the most even it was only slightly more effective.

Anyway, all my questions were rhetorical, so go spew your obvious racists bullshiet somewhere else. Or go enter a robotics competition and see how well you do. lol

Unless youre responding to me, dont hit reply to my post

I <3 Emily Blunt

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

A typical social justice warrior who cannot handle the overwhelming truth - that none of the Carl Hayden team are employed as engineers while the entire MIT team is. Trying to smear me with your lies is not going to change reality.

[–] nammage 8 years ago

They're not employed today as engineers because they were never engineers to begin with, nor did they ever say they were. I was in JROTC for four years, does that mean I should be in the military. Oh, I must not actually have been in JROTC because I never joined the military.

Do you realize the stupidity of what you're saying? Of course not because you're always right, right?

I also took photography for four years but since I'm not a photographer today, it must not have really happened. Someone else took all those pictures.

Idiotic.

-Nam

I am on the road less traveled...

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

I am well aware they were never engineers to begin with nor were they reserve engineers or took engineering classes for four years.

[–] nammage 8 years ago

No, what you're saying is: because they didn't become engineers based on the fact they beat MIT because MIT's robot was better than theirs, and that MIT should have won based on their robot alone and who cares about the rest of the guidelines of the contest because these kids didn't become engineers so, in retrospect they shouldn't have won. Who cares if they weren't afforded the same as those who were on the MIT team; they were undocumented illegals who should never have been in the contest to begin with! They obviously didn't build their robot, it was their "advisors" who did it -- they cheated!!!

That's what you're saying. And, you're the only one. Be a bigot somewhere else.

Hey, I found another person who has an engineering degree who isn't even close to being in the field of engineering: Stephen Piscotty. He has a degree in Atmospheric and Energy Engineering from Stanford. He plays professional baseball.

-Nam

I am on the road less traveled...

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

Try being a social justice warrior somewhere else because it is not working here.

[–] nammage 8 years ago

Try being a bigot somewhere else.

-Nam

I am on the road less traveled...

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

Social Justice Warrior please stop trying to smear me because you lost the argument.

[–] nammage 8 years ago

Yes. That's what you're saying. The robot should be the only determining factor, and nothing else. But that's your opinion on what the rules should be, not what the rules were or are.

-Nam

I am on the road less traveled...

[–] The_Real_Review 8 years ago

I am well aware the rules are biased to allow social justice warriors to make a mockery of these types of competitions.

[–] IMDbeans 9 years ago

Yes, it does seem like a pity vote, which is not good. Shame on the committee