Re: autonmous corner or center
 

Whats bugging me is drag? Is it enough to affect the range(the balls are so light)? Even if it is off by one feet it could hit the rim and bounce off.

No problem, its good that I made you realize it's possible. (the cannon is not on the ground)

If your cannon is sitting on a turret(possibly the camera too) then you don't have to have the entire robot face toward the center goal. If your cannon has to face forward to start then just initialize it to turn like 60(or what ever is best) degrees toward the direction of the goal (with a turret or with out it) and then make you camera scan for the light.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

Well I had doubts in the beginning. I thought corner scoring would be much more efficient and you'd be able to score there quicker. But after talking to programmers and other members on my team, I decided the center goal would be much better. Why? It's way cooler! Plus, our programmers are much more confident with the camera then they were last year. The way I see it, the corner is meant for inexperienced teams and as a backup. Cause let's face it, you can't have three robots firing at the same target at once, it won't work. The whole cannon idea is fairly new, which is nice because that puts a lot of teams on the same page. It will be a nice challenge, and I'm sure many teams will have great results.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

Shooting from the start point is good idea, but you have to think about the max speed you can shoot. The distance between starting point and the goal is too far to shott. Isn't it? Actually, I haven't check the distance between two, so can't tell right now.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

Well thats what I thought too, but it appears that in fact it could be possible. The only problem you may have is drag,


Hmm I wasn't clear in my other post about the "simple solution." I think if you tell your robot to turn left and then start searching, your opponents light would be behind you, making it almost impossible for the camera to grab the wrong light.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

What's the maximum highest theoretical score during autonomous. I believe it would be 90 = 3 robots * 10 balls * all shot into the center goal. Obviously not likely -
in 10 seconds you probably couldn't get 10 shots off, and if all the robots were shooting at the same time they would interfere. While is seems easy to build a robot that could deliver 10 balls to the side goal, I don't think you can do this perfectly, so I'd imagine that even if an alliance has a robot that can deliver 10 points consistently to the nearest side goal, what do the other robots do? You may be shutting out another robot of equal capability.

What would be a typical high score in automode? I am guessing that an average alliance would have a robot that could score 10 low, another that could score 5 low in the far corner, and a shooter that could score about 3 high. so about 24 points.

If you build a robot that can score more that 5 high in auto,
or consistently deliver 15 points by some combination, you will be winning all your automodes.

Another thought, if you consistently can shoot 10 into the center during autonomous mode, opposing alliances that can't match your performance, may decide to disrupt you by programming their lowest scorer to simply interfere with you. There is no rule that says you can't play defense in autonomous mode!

Al that said, it would be way cool to build a self aiming cannon that would track, shoot and score on the run. If you developed that, you might want to sell the technology to Raytheon, which has been having some issues with the ABM program.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

We are leaning toward the 10 "easy" corner goal points. But our programmers feel they could get a launcher to work. We'll see. For now we are working toward both goals.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

I'm hoping towards the shooting during the auto, but i just hope accuracy will be perfected, and when it comes down to it, the winning teams will either be a team with 2 shooters and one pushing in the corners, or a team with 3 shooters... One just wont get you the points needed for victory I believe

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

im just thinking of one thing, the time limit.
10 seconds,
and really thats only 9 because the camera takes a second to boot.
then you have to count in the time it takes the camera to aquire the target.
then to aim
move into a shooting position, because the long shot would be very hard with the speed restriction.
and then unless your "cannon" has the ability to fire automatically or very quickly semi i dont see many balls getting out of it let alone accuratly.
i know last year 15 seconds wasnt nearly enough time to do the auton mode
i cant believe they cut it down to 10
at least they enlarged the memory so we dont have to completely rewrite the code again this year.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

The camera will be active immediately after turning on the robot. It can find the green and communicate with the robot controller just fine while the robot is disabled. Your robot can enter autonomous mode and be ready to go with no camera-induced delay.

Traveling and aiming will still take time, of course, but that's not the camera's fault.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

Good to know, but I still think 10 seconds isn't enough time to get more than four or so shots in the center goal. Some kind of rapid fire device that can load a constant stream of balls that don't interfere with each other could make it possible for a robot to score big during Auto-Mode. I'm not going to give up my idea yet (it's still in development), but it's based on a six-shooter revolver.

As far as the software side of it, a mathematical algorithm for calculating the launch angle and velocity shouldn't be too difficult. It's mostly just simple trig. I think the only variables we need to be concerned with are distance and velocity. For fast moving bots the "p" factor could come into play.

Re: autonmous corner or center
 

actually, when you introduce drag they become differential calculus equations