The legomindstorms are great for this kind of thing, the cameras are good enough and simple to code. There's a cool video of one doing chrome dino jump using the camera to detect objects and it presses space bar. Obviously for a mobile device need a capacative touch device like a stylus. Don't have a stylus? Then I've seen videos where a piece of raw chicken on a motor (or even a drill) is spun to auto swipe tinder 😂
Oh wow, raw chicken, what could go wrong. Last thing the contest needs is salmonella, the battlerealm is not ready for that.
How would Kabam even track this stuff? The robot is a physical device as per OP.
How would you distinguish a robot vs a crappy human? Or a bad robot vs a good human?
The device would still be registering taps and swipes as per usual, unless Kabam has been secretly turning on the camera (they really shouldn’t since the game doesn’t have Face ID or anything) — how would they register a robot vs a distracted human?
So @Thorki, what’s your robotics core software engine in your class? Are they using ROS, or something more streamlined? I remember stumbling upon that when I was looking at OpenCV a few years ago, specifically when analyzing the question of how complex could bots reasonably get in less than expert hands. Man, I wish this stuff existed back when I was in high school. I would be having so much fun (and also probably be completely banned by now).
@DNA3000 yes we’re just using ROS. We’re all aware that there are more specialized tools available but for most of us this is only our first or second project, so we’re sticking with more of a foundational, building-block sort of approach. That said, if anyone has made something similar and recommends an alternative route, we’d be open to suggestions.
How would Kabam even track this stuff? The robot is a physical device as per OP.
How would you distinguish a robot vs a crappy human? Or a bad robot vs a good human?
The device would still be registering taps and swipes as per usual, unless Kabam has been secretly turning on the camera (they really shouldn’t since the game doesn’t have Face ID or anything) — how would they register a robot vs a distracted human?
@Errang I’m not sure how Kabam’s anti-cheat actually works, but I’d give it pretty good odds of detecting an IRL robot in some cases. For example, if my team’s robot were to always act EXACTLY X milliseconds after some input then that might be detectable on their end and obviously no human always interacts in the same number of milliseconds every time. Even adding a random modifier to response time might not work, because pseudo-random (computer generated random) and true random are detectably different.
So @Thorki, what’s your robotics core software engine in your class? Are they using ROS, or something more streamlined? I remember stumbling upon that when I was looking at OpenCV a few years ago, specifically when analyzing the question of how complex could bots reasonably get in less than expert hands. Man, I wish this stuff existed back when I was in high school. I would be having so much fun (and also probably be completely banned by now).
@DNA3000 yes we’re just using ROS. We’re all aware that there are more specialized tools available but for most of us this is only our first or second project, so we’re sticking with more of a foundational, building-block sort of approach. That said, if anyone has made something similar and recommends an alternative route, we’d be open to suggestions.
Keep me updated, I’m genuinely curious to see if you proceed, and if you succeed.
And if your robot’s account somehow gets banned, *definitely* contact me. I would really like to determine how that happened myself.
A robot playing mcoc, that's not MSD? Or is MSD an alien? Jury is still out on that one. This could be the greatest thing of all time, and sounds super cool if you can make it work!
How would Kabam even track this stuff? The robot is a physical device as per OP.
How would you distinguish a robot vs a crappy human? Or a bad robot vs a good human?
The device would still be registering taps and swipes as per usual, unless Kabam has been secretly turning on the camera (they really shouldn’t since the game doesn’t have Face ID or anything) — how would they register a robot vs a distracted human?
@Errang I’m not sure how Kabam’s anti-cheat actually works, but I’d give it pretty good odds of detecting an IRL robot in some cases. For example, if my team’s robot were to always act EXACTLY X milliseconds after some input then that might be detectable on their end and obviously no human always interacts in the same number of milliseconds every time. Even adding a random modifier to response time might not work, because pseudo-random (computer generated random) and true random are detectably different.
Anything is detectable with the appropriate parameters. Would they spend all that time to figure out how your particular bot works and screw you over? Maybe.
But it also matters what you’re doing, right? If you’re “demoing” your robot do non stop arenas for weeks on end… yea that’s a problem.
If you’re “demoing” it going thru Necropolis, yea a problem.
If you demo it soloing ROL Winter Soldier or w/e? They probably won’t care. Again, I say “probably”, I’m not a Kabam employee and I have no authority to suggest any path is safer than the other.
But considering you’re a high school student, I’m assuming you don’t have access to spare devices; you could start a new account to be safe.
But at the end of the day, if your intention is just to test your robot and you do some fights in Act 3/4/ROL — they probably won’t care enough to ban you, and it’s not like the tiny bit of XP you get from those fights will be game breaking.
Maybe a good rule of thumb is any fight you can auto fight is fair game?
Again, it’s your account and your time, do what you feel is best — I’m just saying it might not be worth going to nuclear extremes if you’re worried.
If you want to be absolutely safe, why not try another game? Fruit Ninja comes to mind.
Comments
Would definitely watch even if it fails.
So a mechanical device to tap the screen based on “computer vision” strange term for it but sounds like an amazing project.
Dr. Zola
How would you distinguish a robot vs a crappy human? Or a bad robot vs a good human?
The device would still be registering taps and swipes as per usual, unless Kabam has been secretly turning on the camera (they really shouldn’t since the game doesn’t have Face ID or anything) — how would they register a robot vs a distracted human?
And if your robot’s account somehow gets banned, *definitely* contact me. I would really like to determine how that happened myself.
Or is MSD an alien? Jury is still out on that one.
This could be the greatest thing of all time, and sounds super cool if you can make it work!
But it also matters what you’re doing, right? If you’re “demoing” your robot do non stop arenas for weeks on end… yea that’s a problem.
If you’re “demoing” it going thru Necropolis, yea a problem.
If you demo it soloing ROL Winter Soldier or w/e? They probably won’t care. Again, I say “probably”, I’m not a Kabam employee and I have no authority to suggest any path is safer than the other.
But considering you’re a high school student, I’m assuming you don’t have access to spare devices; you could start a new account to be safe.
But at the end of the day, if your intention is just to test your robot and you do some fights in Act 3/4/ROL — they probably won’t care enough to ban you, and it’s not like the tiny bit of XP you get from those fights will be game breaking.
Maybe a good rule of thumb is any fight you can auto fight is fair game?
Again, it’s your account and your time, do what you feel is best — I’m just saying it might not be worth going to nuclear extremes if you’re worried.
If you want to be absolutely safe, why not try another game? Fruit Ninja comes to mind.