Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

After bringing home a blue banner from the NC regional, we are ready for St. Louis. Secret Sauce 2.0 with some major improvements!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT2OmzrAhPI

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

For those that might be curious, the code for the vision tracking system is pretty elegant. It takes a single image from the camera and then tells the robot to turn a set amount based on the image. The targets are retroreflective tape in the shape of circles (frisbees from last year actually). We only use a single image to conserve bandwidth.

We've had people on our team who have never caught the ball or aligned the robot catching and aligning without any real thought because of the targeting system. It's pretty nifty.

I'm a proud mentor from all of the work these guys keep pouring into this.

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

Epic! Is this the missing link for 100% catch cycles? Should we expect to see your alliance mates sporting frisbee neclaces :)

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

There will definitely be frisbee necklaces, on not only our human player but also the other human players on the alliance as well. Our human player has a lot of practice with helping our driver align the robot and if there weren't other robots on the field I bet they could get the accuracy to nearly 100% without auto-aim.

Our inaccuracy stems from getting hit by one of the other 5 robots on the field after we line up but before we shoot. There used to be a 3-second delay between when our driver hit the "shoot" button and the catapult was released. We switched out a window motor for a CIM though and now there's less than a 1/4 second delay between button press and ball launch.
THIS should be what allows us to get to 100% accuracy.

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

Wow. You guys really took the long trussing role to heart. Luckily we have a qual match together so we can see it in person. I can't wait to wear a frisbee necklace!

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

This is super cool, but what happens when another robot gets in the line of sight between you and your human player? Do you think you could adapt this for robot catching? Put a frisbee on a catcher robot? Would that work?

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

We didn't have auto-aiming capabilities at our two regionals, so if a robot blocks line of sight we'll just do line up the old fashioned way... hand signals!

We'd really love to try putting a vision target on a catching robot! Maybe we'll get lucky and have the chance try it out during practice matches.

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

Gosh wouldn't it be nice to have a match with a catching robot?
:P :D

Re: Secret Sauce 2.0: St. Louis Here We Come!!!
 

I'm so spoiled. There was 1 at Milwaukee and 2 at Midwest, and they were both out on practice day with us.

But, this is a really cool piece of software, and a really cool machine/strategy. I'll be following y'all via webcast.