How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

I wanted to discuss operation strategy at the competition. What are you going to do in terms of control setup and piloting at the competition?

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Telekinesis... and electronics...

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Lots of very very loud screams and gutteral grunts.

We usually use two joysticks for driving, and a bunch of messy, unlabeled buttons and pots to contorl the scoring unit. The driver side is easy. In order to operate the arm, you need to have made the controller. We also usually forget what does what function after the season is over...

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We will probably use 2 joysticks for the driver and 1 joy stick and some switches for the operator

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

yeah, we have a jedi on our team this year, so our robot will just look like a big box with a stick. we're just going to plug out op. int. into the comptition stuff. we won't even have have joy sticks

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

we will have our omni-wheeled bot controlled FPS style, one joystick for translation, and the other for twist, the arm driver will have 3 buttons that go to preset heights and a joystick to fine tune those heights if needed, we will also add some buttons for automated tasks, if i can get the robot for long enough to get things done

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

ours is gonna be interesting...
i'm planning on adding a button to the controls that will allow the driver to flip control of teh wheels 180 degrees; so when you're facing backwards, the controls will behave as if the robot were facing forward, then all the driver has to do is flip the switch and put it back to the way it was. :-D

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

as of right now we will have one joystick for our driver and ethier two for our arm or a xbox 360 controller (hoping for the latter as it is eaiser for me to operate:p ) because our arm is wayyy more complecatied than our driving sytem.. 17 days left guys!!!!

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Control box for the ramps, etc.
Two joysticks for driving with a little twist...
Our programmer/slave of EasyC has come up with two different drive modes. For our standard tank steer, the driver can use both sticks as normal. But if the driver wants to use our "Arcade" mode (think flight simulator controls), all they have to do is use one joystick and pull the trigger to control the drive.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We will use the Logitech gamepad with the Chicklet, and we are making a custom OI button panel to control the mechanisms. I'll post a picture when we have it finished.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We'll be using a 3 axis joystick for the drive. Left and right strafes, twisting the joystick rotates the robot.

For the arm, we'll have a rotary switch with 5 preset heights, floor, bottom, middle, top, and envelope (basically for when we are driving around so we can't get nabbed with appendage penalties. Gah the appendages!).

Then we'll have 3 analog joysticks for the wrist, base arm, and forearm, and a rocker switch for opening and closing the hand.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Well, my code will copy the values coming from the operator interface to the pwm output variables, and let the IFI code do the rest!

But seriously, we're doing pretty much the same thing we've done for years. Two joysticks for the drive and a pile of buttons and switches for the scoring mechanism.

It's what's between the RC's radio and the Victors that's going to be impressive.

JBot

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We have a mecanumbot =) Direction will be controlled by a joystick, and our programmer demands a turntable for rotation.

I have no idea about the arm. Probably some haphazard arrangement of pots and buttons.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We're trying to bring back an idea the team used a few years back: Control via jetpack style arm-backpack. It worked the first time, so it shouldn't be too hard to re-invent it.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

A joy stick for each side of the drive motors. Quite possibly 2 joy sticks for the manipulator (or 1 and some buttons). We're also going with a big red button (probably an easy button) with a cover for ramp deployment.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We have used one joystick for driving in the past and plan to this year also. Also usually an assortment of two position switches, three position, and sometimes rocker switches. This year we have a couple different things going on plus the board is looking good for once this year haha. We try to aim for making it easy for the operators and not making them have to look down too much to see what they are doing because then they aren't watching the field which can be a very bad thing.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Driver:
Steering Wheel for left right
Joystick for throttle
2 of-on switches for ramp deployment

Operator:
1 Joystick with uber-buttons.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

we're using:
steering wheel
joystick for throttle
two joysticks for arm control
a big switch for ramp deployment and lift

we may switch back to tank drive because the steering whell is having some issues, but no matter what we're using all 4 ports...

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Ours is 100% autonomous so we dont have to control it, were just gonna plug in the OI and radio and let her rip.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Our current plan (subject to change) is to have only 1 driver, along with the HP, a student tactician, and the coach. The driver will use an XBOX controller -- 1 JS to drive, the A/B/X/Y buttons for floor/lower/middle/upper, and the triggers for open/close. We'll also have two buttons on the OI board which must be pressed simultaneously to deploy the ramps.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

That is awesome. Is'nt freedom and choice great.

I would like to see this.... done with a joystick.

My question is why do you need any buttons on the O/I? You still have 6 more buttons available to you on the Xbox-controller. You could impliment the same logic using those.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Ours is a very complex system of sensors on the skin of the driver, a biomechanical suit and several large anteaters.

Two joysticks and I have no clue on how to control the arm, maybe a big button to slam with your head?

Chris

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

you have anteaters too???

kiddin'. just two joysticks and a button.
simple, easy, and it works ,too! [we hope :)]

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

two joystics for driver, and we are going to have to find some buttons for manipulator contoll, as well as a big red "Don't press". And we'll call it the football.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

It's intended as a safety measure. Some people are concerned about accidentally deploying the ramp in the middle of the match, so we decided to put the ramp control far away from anything that might accidental get pressed.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Drivetrain: Joystick and a turntable...
Arm: ???

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

For the main driver, we're using one joystick drive, with a kill switch to disable motors, a manual override to kill sensor assitance, a ramp deploy switch, and an extra switch either for raising ramps or for using the camera in manual mode.

For the arm guy, we're using a joystick for arm angle adjustment, the hat switch for claw angle adjustment, 5 automatic arm position buttons, 1 switch to switch which side of our robot the automatic buttons work for, an abort button to cancel auto arm movements, a switch to turn the compressor on/off, a button for our elevator, and then 2 buttons on the joystick for claw and extension control.

Plus we've got 4 indicator LEDs.

All in all we're using 4 analog inputs, 13 digital inputs, and 4 LEDs.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

why control it when you can be fully autonomous...;)

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

2 CH flight sticks for the drive and a 2k7 version of this:http://www.chiefdelphi.com/pics/bin/111068167879.jpg

:cool:

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

My team is using a xbox 360 controller. The analog sticks control respectfully the left and right side full speed. The top left and right bumpers are half speed. Then for the arm and gripper positioning were mounting plugs onto an elevated peice of plexy-glass so you can see the wiring beneath it. it will have 4 positons for the arm one on know ground, 1st spider, second spider, and 3rd spider and the gripper will have open and close. Thats really all we need. I think....

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We are going to use:
1 steering wheel
1 f16 joystick
and we might add 1 special switch box for the ramp.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Our robot's base chassis is an omnidrive, complete with forklift, a gyro and a big claw. There are going to be 2 operators, one to drive and one to manipulate the tubes (unless they changed the design again...). Our gyro is to keep the robot on course, so if it's bumped, it will try to counter the bumping. our loose battery has been giving us quite a bit of strife... it mucks up the gyro and causes spurious movements.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We're using an X-Box 360 controller both to drive and manipulate. Our driver tried it this morning (he was originally totally against using it) and found he loved driving with it.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Two logitech playstation controller spinoffs, and a big red button. Anyone wanna guess what the red button does?

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Our control panel has changed from my previous post. Me and TdorTheBnator built one with four joysticks. Two for the driver and two for the operator.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Says "Ah, that was easy..."????

2 Xbox 360 controllers - found that using thumbs is much faster than using whole arms w/ joysticks (less movement).

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

No actually, allot of teams have Staples buttons, ours just eliminates all the other bots on the field with laser technology. Or it shuts off the suction cup and motors and drops the lift, either or.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

2-axis CH joystick with stiff springs for the driver.

Logitech USB joystick with 3-axes and 8 buttons for the arm operator.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Driver has option of 2 joy or 1 joy mode, along with change of view (reverse what is front, what is back). The arm is controlled by 4 buttons and a switch... the code takes care of pretty much everything.

We're still having issues with some P and PID loops, so hopefully we'll get those fixed at the competition.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

There's no finer engineering than pit engineering.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We have an xbox controller for our driving & a combination for ramp deployment.

We built a model of our arm with potentiometers to control our arm.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We at 753 are using Electronic Pixies, they're tethered so they're legal

Were more worried about our code, if not working properly, were putting the mascot (me) on a spinney chair w/ a broom to score and move around

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Four bone-stock KOP joysticks. Simple, modestly effective, and free.

We've tinkered with adding some custom stuff, but we'll save that for Palmetto.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

We're using an xbox 360 controller for the drive, and a control panel with buttons to control our lift, manipulator and ramp.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Very carefully:)


We're using 2 slightly modified kop joysticks for the drive and a 1/10 scale arm to operate the arm

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

my plan, though it wasn't thought of highly by fellow team-members(COUGH-luke-COUGH), i thought it was very interesting.

somehow attach bricks to the underside of the flightsticks and hold the controllers in the air. say you're driving a tank with two joysticks. when you want to go forward, simply move the sticks so they're at an angle to the pull of gravity (the ground). the bricks will keep the bottom parts of the joysticks parallel to the ground and you're robot will ultimately go forward.

the only problem is that your arms would get tired.
and it's just not practical, cool, but not practical.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Heres our set up





the black one is drive, pretty basic, the middle one is the arm, the 3rd one is just there because we needed 3 more buttons for the ramp



we orginally had programmed a ps2(look alike) controller to use the chicklet but found it sort of annoying and too sensitive so we went with this, which i built and am very proud of(I'm not an engineer)

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

This is definitely a year when we could use more buttons.

Last year, we had a CH Product gameport throttle with one axis and 15 programmable buttons (as long as you didn't need to push two at a time). Rather nice, but it had an alarming tendency to lose it's settings during a competition, and considering that reprogramming it required a DOS boot disk and a computer with a floppy drive, gameport, and ps/2 keyboard adapter, I decided that it wasn't worth the hassle anymore.

This year, I'm using a Logitech Extreme 3D and a chicklet, and w still want more than the 8 buttons...

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

with skill...

this year we are using two modded KOP with screwdriver handles and built in switch like 296 last year and a custom box with tons of switches for presets, claw control, ramp deployment and emergency shifter switch. It also has two infinte urn pots for fine adjustment for the arm and wrist.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

ohhhh that was soooo fun to do! and it only cost us about $3.50

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

The thing with the red switch is a Disable Switch connected to the competition port. The whole OI folds and is able to be carried. The two joysticks are wired to one port and used for driving. Their buttons shift gears. We are using an Xbox 360 controller and a USB Chicklet for controlling the arm. There's actually room and wires for a second chicklet, but only one is mounted because we only needed one. There's also a thumb switch for autonomous modes and a panel of eight LED indicator lights, which works and no longer has tape over it marking things to be done.

The OI in back is last year's with a chicklet plugged in. It was used for testing our prototype while our new OI was being designed.

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

our team is using ps 2 controllers to control our drive and operator systems

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

Team 418 has a control system for driving the robot pretty much exactly like everyone else, 2 CH FlightSticks. However, for our Operator, we have a pretty ingenious control arm - seems like teams 1100 and 1138 also thought of the same thing. It removes the need for "presets" because the actual position of our arm is the preset - the pots on the control arm are calibrated to the pots on the robot via software, so when we move our control arm to a specific position we in effect move our robot arm to that exact same position. Most of the buttons on the control board are just pass-throughs to the buttons on the joystick, so the operator can use the buttons on the control stick or on the control board and they do the same thing. 2 of the buttons are pass-throughs on the "unused" joystick port; we only use that port when we're diagnosing code.



The only things we don't show are the Laptop with our really sweet LabVIEW-based Ultra-Dashboard and our light bar that's attached to an NI USB-6009 DAQ device. We have a relatively poor quality video of our unfinished (prototype) dashboard showing our robot arm and what we were able to do with the LabVIEW Dashboard and the LabVIEW Picture Controls - watch the robot arm in the video as it moves with the real robot arm. You've got to look closely at the screen, the drawn robot arm doesn't come through as well as its joints. Pretty Sweet, can't wait until Lone Star.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...77271172543924

-Danny

Re: How are you going to operate you're robot?
 

blowtorch + screw driver = fun