REPLAY or RE-RUN

[action000]

@phantom285A

The point of the game is to develop the best possible way to score the most points- not learn the most life lessons.

Actually, it kind of is …

REC Foundation

https://www.vexrobotics.com/about-us/

[DougMoyers]

@action000

Whether it is awful or not, the fact is that it is done and done by a much larger segment than it should be done by. Putting this on mentors is very unrealistic.

I ask again - what is wrong encouraging teams to manually program?

Having re-read all this to make sure I did not miss some point I will risk summarizing your position as:
“Rerun code is so easy and effective that teams will never see the need to learn to manually code. This is terrible, as programming is a significant component of what Vex is aiming to teach.”

In terms of learning to program, it would be reasonable to see a normal progression of programming skill in vex to be:

1. time-based auton (motor and wait statements)
2. simple sensor auton (while sensor < value)
3. advanced motor control (PID)
4. functions, tasks, arrays, structs and all that fancy stuff

The reason a team would desire to move up that list is that the level they are currently on is not giving the results that they desire… that their autonomous is not effective. I and others have pointed out that rerun code is not effective, and is in fact less effective than level 1 above. One might say its level 0 on that scale. What is the value in rerun programming? Students get to see their robot move to code, discover that rerun code is awful, and move on.

You say you have seen highly effective rerun code. If that were the case, your position is quite compelling. I just do not believe it to be the case that rerun code is effective. Others in this thread have stated a similar opinion.

TP has a simple way to score in autonomous, which you and I agree was missing in ITZ. I would hope that new teams just start with manual code since it will be something like 3 actions with no turns. ITZ was at least 12 actions with 2 turns and a fairly long travel distance that included at least one obstacle – rather intimidating to a new team.

Edit: removed a confusing double negative

[Gallium]

Regardless of how anyone feels about re-run code there is absolutely no reason to ban it because a) such a ban is completely unenforceable and b) it punishes teams who want to take the time to try to create such a program on their own. While I disagree with downloading and using re-run code written by someone else instead of writing your own autonomous, I’m completely against unenforceable rules and that’s all that a ban on this style of code would be.

[action000]

@Doug Moyers

Having re-read all this to make sure I did not miss some point I will risk summarizing your position as:
“Rerun code is so easy and effective that teams will never see the need to learn to manually code. This is terrible, as programming is a significant component of what Vex is aiming to teach.”

You got it.

@Doug Moyers

You say you have seen highly effective rerun code.

I never said it was highly effective. I have only said that I have seen MANY teams use it.

@Doug Moyers

I just do not believe it to be the case that rerun code is effective. Others in this thread have stated a similar opinion.

crooked dog look If that were the case, why in the world are we even having this conversation? If there was no value to anyone, no one would want to use it. Obviously, there is value to many - and many in this thread - as they do not share my opinion. The value, however, is that they get to shortcut manually programming their robot.

[action000]

@Gallium

Regardless of how anyone feels about re-run code there is absolutely no reason to ban it because a) such a ban is completely unenforceable and b) it punishes teams who want to take the time to try to create such a program on their own. While I disagree with downloading and using re-run code written by someone else instead of writing your own autonomous, I’m completely against unenforceable rules and that’s all that a ban on this style of code would be.

I would agree with that … to an extent. But I contend that there would be ways that VCS, RobotMesh Studio, PROS, etc. could prohibit this - or make it so cumbersome that no one would use it.

[rbenasutti]

@action000

I would agree with that … to an extent. But I contend that there would be ways that VCS, RobotMesh Studio, PROS, etc. could prohibit this - or make it so cumbersome that no one would use it.

Instead of trying to prohibit rerun, what do you think about working on better tools so teams can make more complex (non-rerun) autonomous programs easier?