Kinect with FRC?
 

Hello,

I'm a student lead for my team, and I was thinking of having some of our programmers try working with Microsoft Kinect.

I have some of them going through the documentation and setting things up. They were wondering if there is any recent material to help us through this. It seems like the only documentation for using Kinect with FRC was written in 2011-2012.

Thanks!

Re: Kinect with FRC?
 

Kinect is a really cool technology. Were you planning on using it as an input to the driver station, or were you planning on mounting it on the robot and integrating it with your robot application software?

Also, note there are some technology limitations to be aware of if mounting the Kinect on the robot: the point cloud data has a max range of 13 ft (it's designed to be used in a living room around a TV, so it can't provide range data across the entire FRC field), and also that if multiple Kinect's are used, the point cloud algorithm on each can get confused if Kinect A picks up IR data transmitted by Kinect B. These may not be issues for you, but it's something to be aware of.

Re: Kinect with FRC?
 

they stopped using Kinects during auto mode in either 2013 or 2014, so that's probably the most recent documentation you can get...

Re: Kinect with FRC?
 

254 had the best use of a Kinect in 2012 at Championships.
Here is a video showing the highlights.

Re: Kinect with FRC?
 

I was hoping for it to pick up signals from the Human player. For example, in 2014 (Aerial Assist), if the Kinect could see the Human player make a certain gesture, it would fire.

At the very least, I wanted to have hot goal detection (which I'm pretty sure you can use without a Kinect, but for some reason I thought it would be easier with one). We're still working on this. If y'all could point me in the right direction regarding hot goal detection, I would be very grateful.

Re: Kinect with FRC?
 

For hot goal detection you could probably use a network camera that would have a higher resolution than the kinect.

Re: Kinect with FRC?
 

I feel like this is the best Kinect implementation in 2012 at championships. (I know it isn't video of them at champs, but you get the point :P )

Related document

Re: Kinect with FRC?
 

Is it bad that I just start cracking up and I haven't even clicked the link yet? (I've seen the video before, mind you.)


Back on topic, orangelight is right. Particularly since this year, the use of Kinect was pretty much verboten during automode. (And given the blue box commenting on this fact, I would figure that it's safe to say that that particular use is not going to be back any time soon.)