Team 766 Robot *On-board* Video

[octothorpe]

So my side project this year was turning the robot into a videographer. We bought a small, cheap (~$100) solid-state consumer digital video camera and affixed it to the top of the robot's tower with polycarb and a bolt. The basic procedure is: turn it on before the match, turn it off after the match, download video to laptop, crop beginning & end, post. Here is the result:

http://www.vimeo.com/user:160412/clips

Shaky? Yes.
Noisy? Yes.
Low video quality? Yes.
Entertaining? I think so.

If you were at Davis Regional last weekend, there may very well be a shot of your robot in action as seen from the field. Check the clips; they're tagged with team numbers. For reference, the other robots featured so far are: 114, 295, 481, 701, 751, 753, 852, 955, 997, 1072, 1323, 1359, 1458, 1678, 1726, 2063, 2085, 2156, 2159, 2189.

Five more match videos are upcoming next weekend once the bandwidth allotment resets. Last but not least, thanks to everyone who was at Davis for a great competition.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I did this last year in West Michigan with Adam's camera. Unfortunately, we tipped and the video just pointed at the floor the entire match.

This is entertaining.

[tjcasser]

This was absolutely a scream. Thank you for sharing it!

[s_forbes]

Incredible videos!! I need to convince our team to try something like that...

[yodameister]

No need to convince me. I had already planned on doing this very thing.

[IndySam]

Those were great. Thanks for sharing them.

[Rick]

Isnt this illegal? (alternate power source?)

[1359th Scalawag]

It's amazing:D Match 10 and match 6 show some pretty great views of our robot! A pretty cool different perspective. Amazing videos! Are you going to get the Elimination matches up soon? And Did you have the robo-cam up in our match against you that was 50-51? I would love to see that match from that perspective!

[Jeffrafa]

Isnt this illegal? (alternate power source?)

We have done the same thing at one regional last year and all of this year, only ours is a Oregon Scientific video camera advertised as a helmet cam. Last year we ran it on its own batteries, which is technically illegal, but the head inspector let us run with it since it had absolutely no impact on anything else about the robot and offered no advantage.

This year, to avoid any potential conflict, we ran wires into it and powered it on a 5v line supplied from the RC - which makes it entirely legit. The head inspector hassled us about it in Vegas, and feverishly looked for a rule that would disqualify it, but in the end he didn't find any legitimate grounds for removal of the device.

-Jeff

[pakratt1991]

Those are AWESOME!
Thanks :)

I hope to be able to do this one year :)

[T3_1565]

I have always wanted to do that. And that right there is why! thats so awesome!!!!

[razor95kds]

It's amazing:D Match 10 and match 6 show some pretty great views of our robot! A pretty cool different perspective. Amazing videos! Are you going to get the Elimination matches up soon? And Did you have the robo-cam up in our match against you that was 50-51? I would love to see that match from that perspective!

we have video of all the matches. we will get the vieos up sometime nexxt week. we are still editing them and compressing them.

[octothorpe]

Thanks for the compliments, everyone! Glad you all enjoyed the videos.

For those who said they wanted to do it themselves, go ahead. The camera is an Aiptek IS-DV2 that we bought at Target for ~$100; it retails on Amazon for $88. Takes 30fps VGA video, records to an SD card, has USB port, uses AAs. The bottom has a tripod mount that fits a standard bolt (don't know which off the top of my head) but you'll want a little more of a mounting than that. Feel free to post/PM if you have more questions.

It's amazing:D Match 10 and match 6 show some pretty great views of our robot! A pretty cool different perspective. Amazing videos! Are you going to get the Elimination matches up soon? And Did you have the robo-cam up in our match against you that was 50-51? I would love to see that match from that perspective!

Yeah, wild perspective, huh? 1359 was awesome at Davis; the shrunken head on the cart was very impressive. Unfortunately we don't have the second QF match – robocam batteries died – but we do have QF 1 and we have the 50-51 match (so close!). Right now the bandwidth on the Vimeo account is full, but I'll try to post the remaining five (Matches 43, 48, 54, 63, and QF 4.1) within a week.


Isnt this illegal? (alternate power source?)
We have done the same thing at one regional last year and all of this year, only ours is a Oregon Scientific video camera advertised as a helmet cam. Last year we ran it on its own batteries, which is technically illegal, but the head inspector let us run with it since it had absolutely no impact on anything else about the robot and offered no advantage.

This year, to avoid any potential conflict, we ran wires into it and powered it on a 5v line supplied from the RC - which makes it entirely legit. The head inspector hassled us about it in Vegas, and feverishly looked for a rule that would disqualify it, but in the end he didn't find any legitimate grounds for removal of the device.

-Jeff

Yes, the camera's always been a bit of a contentious issue with the inspectors. The device is powered separately, by two AA NiMH rechargeables. However, so far we've had relatively lenient inspectors who let it slide because it's not affecting the action of the robot and it's not transmitting any video signal (not like it could). The robocam did go flying off when we tipped over at SVR, but it survived the fall largely undamaged, so at Davis we supplemented the mounting with zip ties and velcro and this satisfied the inspectors.

It's all in good fun anyway.

[octothorpe]

Okay, a new week, a new bandwidth allotment. Here are the last five robocam videos from Davis:

http://www.vimeo.com/user:160412/clips

For reference, the new videos are matches 43, 48, 54, and 63 of the qualifiers, and match 4-1 of the quarterfinals. Teams featured by number: 115, 295, 675, 692, 973, 1072, 1280, 1351, 1359, 1458, 1560, 1671, 1678, 2035, 2063, 2073, 2085, 2189. This list is in addition to the list in my initial post – several teams make appearances in both sets of videos. You can find the videos with your team's robot by doing a search for your team number, since all the clips have been tagged.

Good luck to all the teams competing at Championships – I wish Team 766 could go and take more videos of all the action. Also, I want to congratulate all the rookie teams at Davis this year. It's been great to see so many of you out there, and performing (by and large) very well.

[Ryan Albright]

Okay, a new week, a new bandwidth allotment.

Hey if you need some space and bandwidth PM me. I have a website that I am building that is off line so my bandwidth is going to waste :)

[Qbranch]

Here's an idea... why not have FIRST issue each team a wireless video camera (802.11 or other network to allow multiple cameras) thats required to be on the robot, so that during the match the TV people can put robot-eye-view up on the main monitor or on the webcast .... something like NASCAR?

"Aaand here's the in-car video from the blue alliance.... :yikes: "....

-q

[1359th Scalawag]

Here's an idea... why not have FIRST issue each team a wireless video camera (802.11 or other network to allow multiple cameras) thats required to be on the robot, so that during the match the TV people can put robot-eye-view up on the main monitor or on the webcast .... something like NASCAR?

"Aaand here's the in-car video from the blue alliance.... :yikes: "....

-q

That's a really cool idea! It would be nice to see it happen someday.

About match 43, really close match. I didn't notice your alliance's technical problems before. You can see, right before your robot's gripper breaks and you drop the tube, our robot stops turning properly. Later in the match, you can see our robot somehow limping closer to the ramp. It was a very close match and I'm looking forward to eventually seeing it more clearly in the official videos.

[Zyik]

Watch 48, 973 doesnt move, reason: the rampbot deployed before letting us out. Therefore, we got stuck under it. In our attempts to get away we moved the ramp out of the home zone, netting us a penalty that tied the match. WE don't know if that was the exact penatly or if the rampbot caused it by landing on us. Either way, that match should have been a win. Instead, we ended up with a damaged robot. Very annoying.

Great video though!

[octothorpe]

That's a really cool idea! It would be nice to see it happen someday.

Yeah, it is a cool idea, but that'd probably be another $200 going into the KOP cost. And unless you made it mandatory, most teams probably wouldn't bother, so it'd be about as useful as the $200 compressor is to all the non-pneumatic-using teams.

Scalawags, match 43 was definitely a close match, but we were defeated fair and square (can't say quite the same for our first quarterfinal...). I didn't notice your mechanical problems either, which is the flaw of the robocam videos – you can only really focus on whatever the robot is pointed towards.

Zyik, I'd forgotten how your robot got pinned by 1678, that's really tough luck. The match 48 summary's been updated to reflect that, so that people won't wonder where your robot is... At least we netted a tie instead of a loss, but that certainly is frustrating.

[1359th Scalawag]

The thing I would like about a roboCam would be that we could make a really great video with it. You guys could make a video with all the times you scored set up one after another. It would be a pretty impressive video to show to your sponsors!

[octothorpe]

Yeah, with some decent editing you could definitely make a memorable video. Last year the official 766 student videographer expressed interest in this kind of footage, but lately he's been too busy to do much related to multimedia any more. Perhaps if I have spare time over the summer I can try to cobble some sort of clip-compilation video together – it would certainly be a good PR tool. Thanks for the idea.

[David Brinza]

Isnt this illegal? (alternate power source?)It is legal as long as it is drawing power from the +12V or +7 V batteries allowed on the robot (with a 20A or 30A breaker). A fairly simple regulator circuit can be built if it needs a different voltage. The camera cannot transmit (wireless) at 900 MHz or to the driver's station. Technically, it is a custom circuit.

I really think this is great! If the camera had a wider angle (even "fisheye") lens, you could have a better view of other robots approaching or more of the field, crowd, ...

If a wireless camera (at some frequency other than 900 MHz) were used, some really awesome video could be fed to webcast, TV, etc. When FIRST starts producing televised coverage of matches for a broader spectator audience, these sorts of on-board camera views will be very popular. NASCAR has cameras inside the race cars with pan controlled externally. Whenever there's a crash involving a car equipped with one of these cameras, it is replayed. Sometimes the video transmission is interrupted at the moment of impact, which can make the viewer "feel" the crash. I viewed a couple of these clips and get more or less the same sensation.

[octothorpe]

If the camera had a wider angle (even "fisheye") lens, you could have a better view of other robots approaching or more of the field, crowd, ...

True. It became apparent when watching all the videos after competition season (and often struggling to keep track of where the other robots were) that a wider angle would be nice. Of course, the ideal would just be to have multiple cameras on the robot, say three or four. You could even mount each one on its own motorized assembly to get the external pan...

[fieldd]

Our team did something similar to this. Only the video is a lot worse quality. Still though, it looks pretty awesome when we ram someone.