Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Has anyone tried using a camera mounted on top of a tall pole for improved visibility behind the castle wall? I saw it mentioned in the Q&A and was wondering if anyone found it useful? Furthermore, if one were to use said pole with camera, where who one put it? Would it have to be in front of the starting line?
Thanks

Link to Q&A thread

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

4009 used this at Lake Superior this past weekend.

It was attached to their driver station equipment.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

When you say attached, how so? Was it standing on the floor, attached via a pole to the operating console or was it fully supported by the Operating Console?

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

At Southfield FiM District a team had a display Monitor, with a 10ft PVC pipe with a camera on top. It sat on the Driver Station. The PVC pipe was solely attached to the display monitor.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

So would it be legal if the pole holding the camera was standing on the ground and not on top of the shelf that is provided for the operating console?

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Im not sure how they attached it but it was on the operators console it was not on the floor.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

3467 used one at GSD. We found it useful for seeing the robot behind the various high defenses, particularly the drawbridge and sally port. In most situations, it wasn't necessary, but it was quite helpful when we needed it. We made a fixture on the side of our driver console for the pole and it stayed in place for the entire match. The pole was made out of a telescoping tripod leg, which made it relatively easy to transport and adjust.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

We're using a 3rd Person view camera on our DS this weekend at Orlando.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Unless you have a long pole attached to one of your drivers back, which would not only give you a bad view but be totally unsafe, the pole would have to be inside these measurements on the shelf.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

We asked if our drive coach could use a pair of binoculars to see our lift mech and were told no we could not as it would give an unfair advantage to our team. So we asked about the other team with the 10 ft pole and camera. We were told that was legal since it was attached to the driver station. I guess the assumption was it was attached by a cable because I swear I saw the pole sitting on the ground inside an orange traffic cone.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

So if those binoculars were mounted on a mini tripod set at the height of your drive coach, and the tripod was attached to the DS via a tether, bracket, etc., then it seems as though that would make them legal, right?

EDIT: Probably be better for one of the drive team to use the binoculars, since the drive coach cannot touch the DS.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

We chose a 180 camera and shoot camera, gives us pretty good visibility. We make our driver practice with his back to the field driving just by instrument. :)

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

364 here - we asked this question on the QA.

We are doing this. We are mounting a 9 foot pole to our driver station. There is a socket for the pole to be driven into the driver station and we will secure it with a pin-lock.

Here is an image: http://i.imgur.com/YOI3awp.jpg

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

We ran a bird's eye camera on our driver station for a couple matches this past weekend, by fitting the base of a telescoping pole into a matching hole on our driver station and stabilizing it with a velcro strap around a permanently installed brace. (We actually designed rev.1 of the system last year, but never ended up needing it.)

Anyways, it turns out that the "Camera High Atop Of a Stick" (CHAOS) development team didn't put enough thought into the placement of the monitor on the DS, or the camera's field of view for that matter; the drivers reported that CHAOS wasn't actually at all helpful in its current configuration. We'll see whether or not they end up revising it for Troy...

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

We (3647) brought a pole and tripod to the San Diego regionals, didn't realize it had to be attached to the driver station. Team 2485 had one that was supported by the driver station and not in contact with the ground that they were allowed to use. I think it offers a pretty decent strategic advantage, especially when crossing defenses from the opponents courtyard into the neutral zone and for lining up a scaling mechanism if you don't have a spy.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

We (4009) had it attached to our driver's station and it's legal since there is no hight limit on the driver's station.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

The trick there is that your driver station is only allowed to be 14" deep (front to back), so now the pole is using up some of that valuable depth. If you try to stabilize the bottom of the pole by driving it into a bucket full of sand, for example, that takes up even more of the allowed depth; depending on how you mount your camera to the top, that may also use up more of the depth. If you aren't careful, you might eat up so much depth by doing this that you can't actually reach the velcro strip of the driver station shelf any more, and then your DS is vulnerable to being knocked off the shelf and onto the floor.

That was actually 862's original design for the CHAOS system, but it caused so many problems that we quickly switched to a shelf-mount strategy and never looked back!

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

4009 had their driver station on a wooden board that held their DS, pole with camera and a large screen all in one setup. Pretty neat actually.
The best part was they were in Driver Station #2 so that alliance #3 Team 6175 could use it also to see the field for boulders.
We didnt need it since we have 2 cameras on our robot and just so happen was on the other side of the castle in DS #1.

We may employ something at our Hawaii event during Week 5 but not our upcoming NY trip week 3. We leave in 4 days already.:ahh:

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

I see no reason for why a camera pole must be attached to the Operator Console. If i'm interpreting this correctly T26-1-F seems to allow devices such as a camera on a pole so long as they aren't connected to the Operator Console. It seems the legality of such devices are completely dependent on what you call them. If you say it is part of the operator console then it must be attached to the operator console and fit within the correct dimensions. However, if you say that it is used solely for the purpose of planning/tracking strategy then it may be placed anywhere within the castle so long as it is not touching the Field/Arena or the Operator console.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Watch 2122 at AZ North the next two days to see the pole in action. A few other teams are already working on cloning the idea as well.

On the note of T26-1, look at vi of bullet F. I would hardly say a camera used for obtaining a better live view of your robot and the field for your drivers does "not in any way affect the outcome of a MATCH, other than by allowing PLAYERS to plan or track strategy for the purposes of communication of that strategy to other ALLIANCE members." If you've used it to make any driving decision like running an intake or lining up a shot it has affected the outcome of the match.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

read the rest of part vi.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Could it be said that the pole is used to control communication between alliance members? Obviously, if one team has a periscope camera, it could be used to help the alliance with placement on the field.

It's too much of a flip-flop issue to know for sure. I feel like it depends on the Head Ref at whatever event you're at.

Hopefully we get a clarification in a future team update if this issue becomes more and more popular between teams and events.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

I did, communicating "turn left to line up with that goal" is not planning strategy. You may use a camera station to help plan strategy, but you can also use it for non-planning and tracking uses, and there is not really a way to exclude that capability.

That's how I interpret it, but I'm only reffing at AZ North and I don't expect that to come up in the next two days.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Yes, the way I see it the camera is used to track in-match strategy/gameplay which then helps the entire alliance make better strategic decisions. I think the point you're getting at is that it must help not only your team but the other teams on your alliance as well which there are many scenarios which it could help the entire alliance, like freeing stuck robots from defenses. However, this will be hard to prove if the head ref never allows it to happen.

Because this method prohibits you from connecting it to the operator console you are limited to simply watching the camera feed and making decisions off of that. I don't see how this data could be used to make a decision and not be used for planning or tracking. I can't come up with any examples of non-planning/tracking uses other than maybe entertainment but I don't think they'll prohobit that.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

We were through the legality discussion last year, and the relevant rules have not changed. Additionally, there are plenty of Q+A rulings on the subject! The final answer is that it must be part of the driver station.

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Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Thank you, it seems that the ruling on Q77I pretty clearly prohibits using a camera as special equipment under T26-1. However, I'd really like an official ruling on this since the Q+A isn't really official and FIRST does sometimes clarify rulings if they believe the Q+A got it wrong, but until then they'll have to remain as part of the driver station.

Thank you for the replies guys. We at currently at NYC and used it during one of our practice matches yesterday and found it to a be a good help, especially when crossing defenses and getting around other bots. Looking forward to seeing it's usefulness in the remaindremainder of our matches.

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Our team likely had one of the best implemented camera "periscopes" at our regional event. It was securely mounted to a retractable pole and securely fastened to our driver station.

We were told by the head ref in our second to last match that our pole/periscope was "un-safe"

I expect this to be an issue for teams that didn't implement the periscope as well as we did, and there will be plenty of inconsistent ruling across events. Maybe FIRST will have to put out an update on this one too....

Re: Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall
 

Our team used it thought our First District event (week 2), there were some questions about its legality, but the FTA and head ref came to the conclusion it was legal. However, we have been informed that there will be a meeting soon that will go over the legality of the periscope in future events as well as clarify the meaning to connected to the drive station. Our team, for instance, just had the monitor connected to the same power strip as the drive station but was not permanently succeeded in any way.