your question could have been solved with a little basic trigonometry. Our team did the calulations..based on the height of the rmap and position of the driver station. If you are at least 5' 6" then you can barely see down the ramp. If you are 5' 7" you cansee everything on the otherside of the field. That's it. 5 foot 7 and you can see everything, without a ladder.

i guesse i should write that down on my driver application this year...hehe being 6'4'' will have some major advantages!

You are negating a few things. Such as if your bot is in the far center starting point, you can't see it (if it's under 2' tall) and that bins will reach a height of 8'2" when placed on the ramp

sorry...i did forget about bins but...if you think about it..only for the first 15 seconds..will that be a problem. Almost immediatly ...someone will knock the boxes over and you'll be able to see. If not..i guess that's your problem..and you have to work out the problem another way. But if the position of you robot is what you want to see..use a flag. And remeber that you can always see off to the side of the ramp..without any difficulty.

Hey Ianworld........
 

I don't think you get to correct people's spelling, when you can't spell 'separately' correctly!! :p

Hey, Garrett from # 16, the Baxter Bomb Squad. A few years ago, we competed in BEST, a scaled down version of FIRST. In that year's game, visibility was a huge issue. From what I remember at the tournaments, the best thing a team can do to counteract the reduced visibility (other than tall drivers) is to mount a flag on the robot using a flexible pole with lots of memory...if weight isn't an issue, I would recommend using more than one flag, for example one on each corner, the front/back corners, or on diagonal opposite corners. Just my opinion.

We've managed to simulate some games in our mock field with the sufficient amount of boxes, and visibility/maneuverability of the robot was a major problem. The sides of the boxes did offer some space to ascertain about where the robot was located, but nothing about its orientation.

Also keep in mind how high the boxes are. We rigged up a flag for one of the matches but it was still obscured by the center stacks.

Nevertheless, I'm confident that for the majority of matches the center stack will be knocked down within the first 20 seconds.

quote:
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Originally posted by Ianworld
The robots are pretty big...
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From JVN

"Exactly, now try to see THROUGH the giant unfolding wall that is designed to knock down all the boxes, and then guard the ramp.

See the problem?

That's why we're testing our drivers for ESP, while it hasn't been important in the past, we feel it will play an increased role in this years game."




If the robot is 5 feet tall the total height will be 7 feet. How do you see through that?

I wonder--are there any rules againss bringing a short ladder to the arena. My personal thought on this is to put my friend who is 6' and only 125lbs. on my or someone else's shoulders. It's ingenious--I don't see how they would've thought for that.

there are rules against that. They were made it last year to prevent people from getting an edge while shooting the soccer balls. You know someone must have thought of it since they made a rule against it. Another wierd rule is to not use snow to cool off motors or bateries. You can thank the canadiens for that one. hehe j/k

makes you wonder why first is so against using vid cams on the robot

So, is there STILL a rule against the shoulders thing, cause that'd be kinda fun anyway--I don't care how goofy I'd look. And, also, BTW, those numbers for height are eye level, remember. SO you really should be looking at an all 6' teem.

its still there this year. thats considered unsafe anyways. poeple are worried about tripping while walking 3 feet to the controls...........imagine the safety field day the uber safe would have with that.

i love the idea of the 4 flags... maybe different color flags, 2 in the back and 2 in the front so the driver in case of visibility problemas, can c if his baby is facing a certain way......

you dont....you drive right through it....hehehehe