Re: Building an arena controller
 

I put together a white paper on the last day of the build season explaining changing the channel with the 2005 system.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...le&paperid=445

Re: Building an arena controller
 

Well, if we cannot get something setup to act like an arena controller and automatically set the channel, so be it.

To CJO - This is how we were going to do the system:

A laptop with serial port to an IFI robot controller (2004 model). This would be the "arena controller." It would have a little bit of circuitry to hook together the auton mode switches into one digital output and wire the six disable switches to more digital outputs, then have some digital inputs running to a control board with instant disable switches for the six teams. The laptop would be running a program to have serial communication with the IFI controller, telling it when to start a match and when to go autonomous, etc. That would handle the timing. It would also be talking to a custom program on another computer over a network, that computer would be hooked up to the video mix and display the countdown timer and scoreboard.

I am currently working on all three of those programs:
-the display program: 10% done
-the master control program: 0% done
-the IFI-RC master program: 15% done.

Once those get a little closer to public release, I will set up a website somewhere and post them for anyone interested.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

Before you wire all the auton switches together, check what happens when the disable AND auton switches are connected. I'm thinking it will disable anyway, but the last thing you want is a robot running around by itself in auto mode with no way of stopping it.

How are you planning on creating the human player pads? We've been interested in building one, but can't really find a way. Wiring its no problem though.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

We simulated the human player pads at a pre-ship competition we held using some dead-man's switches. Basically, a momentary switch that is normally-closed (turned ON) unless you press it, then it opens up. We placed the switches where the pads should have been. This way, the HP has to hold the switch down for their robot to stay enabled, and when they let go to go deliver a tetra their robot is automatically disabled. It worked really well.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

IIRC, it does exactly what you would expect - runs autonomous mode but does not move.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

The controller will operate the field the same way the IFI stuff does--keep the robots disabled until the match is started, then enable autonomous mode. Disable does prevent auton mode from doing anything, as it affects the master controller in addition to the user processor, but that won't be an issue.

Also, each individual station will be controllable in terms of disabling robots before or during the game. We will have e-stop buttons and disable switches on the master controller to disable robots for hazards or violations.

You can build floor mats with a little floor mat, a piece of plexi or aluminum to cover the bottom (insulate the metal though) and some strips of metal. Glue one strip to the bottom of the mat, then one stripto the underlying material (wood/plexi/insulated metal). These wires go out to connectors to the RC dig ins on the master controller. Then, you put strips of nonconductive material around the conductive strips, springy stuff like folded pieces of cardboard or something else that is springy but low-profile.

I have tested the mat idea before for use in a haunted house :-D it works. We will probably have overrides in case the mats fail during a match.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

Anyone with an OI open, could you try to hook the microprocessor up to a programmer with ICSP (in circuit serial programming) capability, then try to read the hex off of the chip. I know that the guys at IFI are probably smart enough to use code protection, but it might be worth a shot. Then just disassemble the hex to get the assembly. Might not be super helpful to have the assembly, but it would be better than nothing.

Just my thought...

Re: Building an arena controller
 

Two reasons why I won't do that:

1) reverse-engineering the OI would probably get IFI people pissed more quickly than just messing with it

2) I am the only person working on this for now, and not being a genius programmer, have no clue how to take assembly code and figure out serial data structure from it...

Re: IFI Secrets?
 

The practice switch enables you to use that row of 4 switches to change the channel. Check the OI manual for the channel settings.

Edit -

Some channels will go blue, others will go red. Just keep trying different channels on the OI until you get the color you want (it seems like the first 2 or 3 were red and the rest were blue .. or was it the other way around .. :confused: )

Re: IFI Secrets?
 

The practice switch doesn't do anything with new OI's... you just have to have the team number > 2048 (MSB set). I had also thought that I remembered there being an uneven number of colors, like 4 red and 2 blue or something. I read something on it but I can't find it anymore... does anyone have a link to where IFI said what channels produce what colors?

Re: IFI Secrets?
 

miketwalker was talking about using the competition port pins to set the channel, not the OI dip switches. The 2005 OI doesn't use the practice pin anyway; the documentation I can find says that the channel select switches are always active. (That's not exactly true; you have to set the team number's high bit before you can escape channel 40.)

Re: Building an arena controller
 

Hmm .. I wonder why they stoped using the practice pin. My fault on spreading wrong info .. I know we used the practice pin last year without any problem .. and since the RC/OI sets are almost the same .. I figured there wouldnt be any problem.

Heres the offical word from IFI

http://www.ifirobotics.com/forum/vie...f3520b b85074

http://ifirobotics.com/docs/oi-ref-guide-2-21-05.pdf - Page 16 lists the channels and the switches you need to set. It doesnt say the colors however.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

I built a field controller based on the edu controller. What pin on the competition port is the e-stop? In order to effectivly control the units, i hooked the power supply up to a relay, and used Kevin Watson's ttl interface to control the system from a laptop. It was an arena controller uber ghetto edition, but it worked. I talked to one of the IFI people. They are somewhat touchy about the chanell changing, however, I think that they might be willing to release the e-stop and disable ports, because of the safety issue related to running a scrimage w/o e-stop and using powerdown to disable.

Finally a note on the field controller. Hatch chose to create a system this year in which there was no hardware control panel. As a result the official field had as long as 2 sec latency between a robot disable, and the actual robot disable.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

Intresting. I thought that the e-stop was just a disable button for the drivers. I doubt they would use another pin for the e-stop when they could just use the disable pin. I'm not sure thou. Might be something to ask the IFI people if such a pin even exists.

As for the latency, I recall seeing that. Following the auton, it seems like there was a long delay (well .. a couple of seconds) between the human control sound playing, and the humans actually gaining control. At Sac, I also remember seeing a robot not getting disabled when the human player jumped off the pressure pad. My jaw hit the ground when I watched it happen, I only saw it once thou.

Re: Building an arena controller
 

Two thoughts,

The e-stop on blue #3 did not work at SVR. We tried several things, and could not re-enable the e-stop.

As for the latency. I believe that there is ~1.5 sec between the end of autonomous mode and the beginning of driver control designed to allow field attendants to remove the hanging tetras.

Finally, at SVR we observed that the real time scoring frequently increased the field latency. Also, we had some communications problems with the team number displays.