Visibility
 

Has anyone else thought about visibility being an issue for drivers this year?

I see the scoring platforms being completely full of stacks especially near the end of the season. With 3 good robots, I could see 6ft stacks almost all the way across both bumps.

That being said you will have two six foot walls that you wont be able to see while you are still trying to stack more bins.
This will cause a problem for teams that wait until the end to stack those co-op bin in the middle.

Re: Visibility
 

The stacks will only make it harder to gather totes near the step. For stacking there will only be visibility issues on the platform closer to the step since the two platforms overlap slightly. Depending on your driver station location you'll be able to see more or less of it.

Re: Visibility
 

A suggestion for short robots.

Bike Flag

Re: Visibility
 

Put a webcam or two on the robot. You should be able to get images of a useful size at a usable frame rate with the allowed bandwidth. It may not help with knowing the absolute location of the robot on the field, but it should be enough to aid in navigation.

Bike flags are a good idea to quickly find the robot.

Re: Visibility
 

We can only hope that we have visibility problems! I'm not counting on it...

Re: Visibility
 

Our team seems to be leaning towards camera - it makes the game kind of like a video game for when we can't see the robot behind stacks

Re: Visibility
 

Exactly. I've heard that kids these days are good at the video games, so they should feel right at home.

Re: Visibility
 

could use sensors to stop and or turn the robot away from a stack so as not to knock it down along with a camera.

Re: Visibility
 

A 360-degree array of ultrasonic sensors happens to be really attractive after reading how easy it is to knock stuff over. The drivers could get little red arrows on their camera feed if they are getting close to any tipsy stacks!

Re: Visibility
 

"why not an aerial camera?" I suggest half jokingly.

Re: Visibility
 

I love this idea.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...15&postcount=7

Re: Visibility
 

Exactly what I was thinking. It could even be something you make at competition if you realize visibility becomes a problem.

Re: Visibility
 

You who want to drive via video, talk to some people who have tried it. We've found that the video is too laggy for useful navigation. This is especially true when connected to the field network. It might work great in your lab, but then be useless in competition.

Re: Visibility
 

What if in your driver station, you have a webcam hooked up to a sbc like a pi or an odroid, and then have dual monitors, one with your usual driver station stuff, and the other monitor displaying what the webcam on a ten foot high pole sees? The pi would be on a closed system, so fps won't drop depending on if you're in the lab or at competition?

*I have no idea if this is legal. I haven't read through the entirety of a game manual since 2013.

Re: Visibility
 

My team recently discussed this dilemma and briefly considered a camera but ultimately ruled it out. The video feed typically lags due to the field connection and we didn't want to try to drive with that. I'm not saying its impossible just not preferable.