Planete Sciences

Hi,

I'm a former volunteer of Eurobot, I continue to follow the development of Eurobot these last years. I've also organized the swiss final in 2012 and in the past between 2004 to 2007. I were the first organizer of Eurobot outside France. Volunteer some other years.

What I say here are only my points of view...

Since few weeks, I've heard that the President of Planète Sciences wants to take control of the Association Eurobot. He has a plan and Planète Science will control near all the tasks of Eurobot (writing rules process, ...). He says (more by good manners) that international volunteers can continue their work. But in fact this is a takeover of the King Ledey on Eurobot.

Eurobot is or perhaps were an international association with many contributions from Madrid (Spain) to Moscow (Russia), from Catana (Italy) to London, from Novi Sad (Serbia) to Frameries (Belgium), with certainly an heart in La Ferté-Bernard if not Ris-Orangis in France. But sure the spirit is (was?) multi-cultural.

So I would like only to share you that I'm very sad today. Why today... that the D-day of the Eurobot meeting of the Executive Committee, they will decide who will be the President. I know that they have a lot of discussions cross different people of this Committee. There was a compromise, a candidature of a long time volunteer in Eurobot, but he was convinced (forced?) finally to not present his candidacy.

So the candidacy of Ledey seems to be the only choice that the Eurobot Committee have today. If they don't take this choice, the founder members seems to use the veto that they can.

If this evening, the committee take this wrong way, or perhaps the "no through road", the "dead-end"... it will be very sad and bad news for all participants, volunteers, public, family, friends that have share this international spirit these past years.

Two ways, I see :
- a kind of strike action (french people can help us... they are more specialists than swiss people), perhaps some kinds of cyber-robotic-activist action to bend the founder members to continue in the right way.
- to start something new... an other robotic competition... the idea is already in the spirit of some people have left Eurobot association in the last year, or ready to leave it if the wrong way is taken.

Best regards

Stéphane

PS: We will see, I will not be connected in the next 48hours, I will see the reactions. If a member of Planete Science want to use censorship against this message : don't forget that I have not only writing on the Planete Science forum, but in the topic 'Eurobot' that is hosted... so that's a brick of the international spirit that I want to save ; this message has its backup...)

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Eurobot - SwissEurobot, the Swiss Robotic Cup

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Eurobot - SwissEurobot, the Swiss Robotic Cup

I have mixed feelings about this. I don't really know the history of this, or much about Planete Sciences, so bear with me and feel free to say something if I have the wrong end of the stick. I'm very much in favour of the 'international spirit' that has been promoted by the competition in the past, and it would be a shame to lose that altogether. Is it certain that these changes will take this spirit away? Will current international volunteers be 'banned' from helping out?

On the other hand, from my point of view (as a competitor looking in from the outside) the organisation of the competition by volunteers in the past couple of years hasn't been as good as the first two years in which I entered (2009 and 2010). This year, in particular has been quite bad in my opinion. The website was never updated properly for the 2012 competition (try getting sponsors interested when there is no flagship (pun intended) website promoting the competition!), and there were months of silence from the refereeing referants when asking questions on the international forum (the French language forum seemed better organised in this respect, and I was advised by several people to check on there instead!). With this in mind, could it be a benefit to allow a bigger organisation to take control of the competition, if they have the ability to put more money into the cause?

What I would like to see from Eurobot (and I wish I had time to volunteer and help make a difference) is a truly international competition, as opposed to the weird (International - France) + France arrangement we seem to have. (How are the French teams ranked alongside international teams when they don't play as many qualifications against international teams?)

What I would not like to see, is everyone boycotting the competition and killing it off before we really know what effect these changes will have. So my main question to the OP is, how do you know that this change will have such a negative impact on the competition?

I'll be watching this thread with great interest.

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- Chris
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- R.Me.R.T. (2012)
- Agent Orange (2010)
- Mighty Morphin Tower Arrangers (2009)
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- http://chrisbarlow.wordpress.com

I don't understand your question. French teams play five qualifying matches for Eurobot.
After the French final (the day before the European finals).
I don't think it's an advantage, is it ?

Equipe Points MJ V D E F
1er RRT 225 5 5 0 0 0
2nd RCVA 221 5 5 0 0 0

I don't know all the history, I wish we will have more informations.

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blog : http://olegeurobot2013.blogspot.fr/
2013 - 7ème de la Coupe de Belgique et Prix Spécial du Jury
6ème de la Coupe de France, éliminé en quart de finale par les champions de France et d'Europe
2012 - 6ème de la Coupe de France, éliminé en 8ème

Hello stephaneCVR

Planète Sciences does not have and never had the intention to stop Eurobot as it is as an event, or to stop the international collaboration between all the volunteers. Remember, Planète Sciences created Eurobot. The spirit of the competition can't be anything but shared.

You judge people based on what you imagine they will do or what you imagine they might have done, according to what you heard some people saying at some place... this is inappropriate.

If you are as passionate as you seem to be about Eurobot, please stop spreading misleading information, and continue being involved like all the other volunteers, improving Eurobot year after year. There is no "dead end" like you say, only the continuation of the past efforts.

I suggest you contact Jean-Pierre Ledey (you name him) directly to get your facts right instead of posting nonsense here and confusing people.
The effort on Eurobot will continue and you're all invited, of course, to the 2013 edition in La Ferté Bernard !

Sincerely,
Bertrand
Head of the 2012 French Cup of Robotics
Eurobot Executive Committee member

Eurobot 2013 will be at La Ferté Bernard ?

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Toutes les infos sur notre team et nos robots: http://tdsteam.wordpress.com

I wasn't saying it they had an advantage, I just didn't know how it worked. I was wondering if there were some 'calculations' that were used to decide where they fit in the international rankings after the French finals... So the top 3 teams from the French finals play all 5 of their qualification matches in Rounds 4 and 5 of Eurobot? That makes sense (must be quite intense for the french teams then!). Thanks

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- Chris
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- R.Me.R.T. (2012)
- Agent Orange (2010)
- Mighty Morphin Tower Arrangers (2009)
-
- http://chrisbarlow.wordpress.com

Hello,

Is it possible to have more informations on the operations of Eurobot ?

What is the internal structure of Eurobot Organisation ?
What are the plans for the coming years ?
How the executive commitee members are elected and who can be elected ?
How, by whom and by what means Eurobot competition rules are designed?

The operations of Eurobot are a great mystery for most participants, indirectly Eurobot member.
More informations would be welcome and will interest certainly many of the participants.

Thank you for your reply.

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Retrouvez le dossier d'avant projet, des photos et la 3D de nos robots sur notre site web http://www.cvra.ch.
Ainsi que le code source de notre robot.

Hello,

Of course it's possible to get more information !
However, the forum is not a good place to comment the inner workings of an association.

I read with care your remarks about the lack of information on this subject.
You can get some (slightly outdated) pointers here.
There should be more information during the next update cycle of the website.

Meanwhile, we have to concentrate on other tasks (such as preparing the next event, yes we are already working on it !); I believe most participants are interested in having a good time in a well prepared event (as much as possible )

Best regards,
Bertrand

Hi all,

well, this discussion is quite interesting, so I would like to share with you my opinion and (maybe) give some suggestions to the EC in order to organize the event better.

First of all, I must say that the Eurobot competition is (in my opinion) one of the most interesting robotic competitions: the fact that the theme and the tasks are different each year, makes the competition very challenging, since you are forced to invent something new each time. And this is more interesting and stimulating (for students) rather than other competitions like robotcup, for example, where the game is always the same. And this is the reason why, despite some organization problems (see below), our team participates every year. But I think that, to make the competition more attractive, some minor issues should be solved.

The first one is: please give the International competition the same dignity of the French one! I understand that the French event is much more bigger than the International cup, but this reason does not justify the fact that (for example), as for "questions about rules", there were many many many answers in the French forum rather than the English one. Many questions were left unsolved and our team was forced to read very often the French forum (and use Googletranslator) to obtain the needed answers. This is quite disappointing.

The second problem is related to La Ferte'-Bernard and the dates of the event: each time I went to La Ferte', I've found too much difficulties in finding an hotel. They are fully booked very soon, and often do not accept reservations via phone or emails. Therefore, organizing a so big event in a town/period which is not able to host all coming people could not be a right choice. At least, it could be a good idea to organize a logistic service also for people who do not want to use the public dormitory.

The third problem (occurred indeed only this year) has been the lack of internet connection at the last edition. Today, having a connection is very very important: many teams have svn server for software, other want to keep informed their supporters through FB or twitter, other need to get information from the net to repair their robots or to make them behaving better, etc.

Well... as you can see, they are not "so big" problems: I think that putting a little more effort in the organization of the international event would make teams happier and once more interested in participating in order to keep the initiative alive!

All the best!

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Corrado Santoro
UNICT-TEAM Supervisor, Italy
http://eurobot.dmi.unict.it

Hello,

First, I would like to thank you for your feedback.

Here's a Multipart answer for a multipart question !

1) Internet access

There was an Internet access available this year in the partner's pits (RS, Altran, and others).
It's not the most convenient solution, but for important tasks it does the job.

As for providing a free wifi or such solution, the laws in France against illegal file sharing and illegal activities are extremely strict and there is no way for the city of La Ferté Bernard to provide internet access for the participants without facing huge legal issues. I'm afraid the laws provide no solution.

2) English forum vs French forum

I don't think it's only a "french vs english" issue.

You can see that it also took a while for answers to come on the french forum.
At no point we have promised to be regularly answering the forum, because it is a huge work to follow all the threads and questions.
We consider the forum to be primarily an area for participants to share information.
For urgent questions, you can contact your NOC by e-mail and I'm sure you'll get a reply. If they don't have the answer, they can forward your question to the appropriate people.

We did experiment a new framework this year for the french area, but it is mostly because there is much, much more activity there and we need to keep it under control to be able to respond some day, not because we value more the french side.

We are limited in term of resources and monitoring the forum is a huge task. It's likely that we won't be able to answer regularly, but we'll try to do it when we have time (see, I do it now )

3) Logistics

Planète Sciences and La Ferté Bernard did the best they could for the teams accomodation: they provided camping slots, rooms in the college nearby, and some space in a gymnasium.

Given our moderate resources, we want to focus on our core mission, that is organizing the event itself. We prefer to leave the logistics up to the teams.

4) Bonus point: Why La Ferté Bernard

La Ferté Bernard is not a random city, the city itself is one of the founder of Eurobot.
As such, it has a total legitimity to welcome the event regularly.

For your information, this year it was not supposed to host the event.
La Ferté Bernard did it because no other place wanted to host the event, to save the event.
We must be very grateful for this.

You seem to appreciate some aspects of the event; you have to understand that the non-profit aspect and the fact that all of this is done by volunteers also come with drawbacks. Just like some robots don't quite work the way the team was waiting for it to work, the event is not perfect. It's the same for the event, sometimes things do not work the way we would have hoped them to do.

I hope that this answers your questions.

Peace !
Bertrand

I can understand that it takes a lot of time and effort to keep track of questions, and that the new framework on the French forum was experimental, but this raises some questions in itself:

1) Why have an official 'Questions' thread at all if there's no guarantee that they will be answered? It gives the impression that the forum is the FIRST place to ask questions.

In past years, this forum has been more active, and the questions have still been answered, surely the lower levels of activity would make it easier to respond?

2) What has changed in recent years that has made answering the questions slower? Have recent 'Refereeing Referrants' had more of a life than past ones?

3) What was the conclusion with the experimental new framework? Will it be utilised in the English-speaking forum for 2013? Personally, I think it looked very organised, and much easier to follow (if it were in my native language ).

and one final 'bonus' question (on I've asked a few times and not had a reply):

4) What happened to the eurobot.org website this year? It has been saying "coming soon" for nearly a year now, when will it actually be "coming"?

Another point which was not mentioned: At the international competition a lot of the commentary and announcements where only made in french, which is a big problem when only a few team members are able to speak this language.

The problem with the differences between the english and french forum can be solved quite easily. If Eurobot should be international why not only host an english official forum. English is the world language and everyone should be able to understand it.

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Rca

Hey Bertrand,

what's happening to the English forum??

You said that there is not "English vs French" issue, however I see many answers by the "Referring referent" in the French forum and NO ANSWER in the English part; and questions are posted even one month ago!!

As international team, we must read French forums to have some answers. Do you think it is fair??

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Corrado Santoro
UNICT-TEAM Supervisor, Italy
http://eurobot.dmi.unict.it