Raspberry PI 2

There has now been a new version of the Pi released. I was going to get one as they are still dead cheap. I might run some rumble on it and see how it does. It apparently has a newer quad core CPU that runs at 900mhz and due to improved architecture has approximately 6x the power of the original Pi, plus the machine now has a gig of ram.

I'm going to give it a go and will report my findings (once I get one!)

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If it all goes well I am in the process of getting my GA framework up and running where I will be able to run it on the PI2 and improve my bot (hopefully)!

6x a P2-300 is still pretty much crap by our standards. :-) But it sounds like a fun experiment, keep us posted!

It doesn't need to be lightning fast if you can leave it on all day every day running something. It only consumes around 4 watts compared to 500 for a desktop PC so its not going to break your bank to do so. I dunno if the power to wattage ratio is better than a desktop PC though! Are desktop PCs 100 times faster than a RP2? I would have thought not!

I can go to work, leave it running which is not what I would do with my desktop! :)

Hah I'm not so sure it will be that slow. We shall see I guess. Will be fun to find out whatever the result! :)

As for the GA I don't have it running yet, but I have in the past for previous test bots. This time will be similar but better I hope. Basically I have my own framework for testing a bot similar to Roborunner / RoboJogger but I can run diirectly from other code. This is all in C# just because its what I'm most comfortable in using (especially for threading). I plan to use this framework to run tests against bots as you describe by programmatically updating a settings file in the bots data directory. Do a run for every individual in the population, evolve, try again. This will be very slow to run I know. But I will probably evolve on a subset of the robots in the RR, not sure how many yet. You have a good idea of what gives good coverage? I dont want the GA to specialise against just a few bots as it will probably decrease performance vs the rest! :)

I will be evolving all parameters in the bot at once. GA is great for doing this, I think that doing movement/gun independently has advantages and disadvantages but I think the two are not mutually exclusive and the GA might find some interesting ways of setting variables such as firepower depending on how your bot moves compared to your target - and your targets will adjust movement & position depending on your position, which affects your targeting. We shall see!

If I get time I will do a write up of my stuff and maybe release the source for my framework if anyone isn't wanting to use RR/RJ for some reason like me! :D

Back of the napkin calculation: 17 years since I got my P2-300 = 11 doublings (Moore's Law) = 2^11 or 2048x speed for modern desktop vs original Rpi /= 6 for Rpi 2 = 340x. =)

The P2-300 is Single core, The Cortex-A7 is Quad core .
The P2-300 has 300 Mhz, The Cortex-A7 has 900 Mhz.
The P2-300 is CISC, The Cortex-A7 is RISC.
The P2-300 consumes 18.6 Watts, The Raspberry Pi only 4 Watts.
In other words yes the Cortex-A7 is better than P2-300.