Kansas City Regional
 

I was wondering how many teams that are going to the Kansas City regional got the camera to work and can use it to score a keeper in autonomous?

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Calling all Kansas City Teams!!!

www.team935.info

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Northmen Robotics at Oak Park will be there. Because of the bad weather this year, we were not able to get the camera working. We plan on using most of our pit time to get the camera working.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

I will be there with team 1825, We have the camera on our robot and we will use it in autonomous to score a keeper. You can see our robot here.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

I'm the programmer for 1825--if you have questions on getting the CMU cam working, I might be able to help.

The weather around here has been truly horrible! Especially for us, as a homeschool team--we are forced to drive from all over the place, some members traveling as much as 45 minutes one-way to get to a meeting.

However, yes, we did get our camera working. The lens is off-center, the default pan/tilt values were useless, and some of the numbers needed tweaked--but after a lot of effort we did eventually get it working quite nicely. However, our testing platform didn't allow for us to test very thoroughly with multiple lights being in view--I have a tweak in mind for when we get there, but I can't do too much with it until we actually get to a real arena.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

I have actually gotten the camera to track just fine. I am just having problems using our gyro to turn to the angle of the light. The angle is so minute that the robot either doesn't move or it undershoots. If you have any advice please do tell.

Dustin

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

The key here is to use a PD/PID loop in combination with the PAN_SERVO value provided by the camera's tracking code. Set the gain large enough, and even small differences in the camera's left/right position will cause your robot to move.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

I have set the gain to 500 and the robot sits there and you can here the motors trying to move the robot. So I set the I higher but then it overshoots. Since it's in a case statement I am thinking I need more or less of a range for it to go to the next case. I have been working with it for 3 days straight but it still wont go to the correct angle.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Why use a case statement in a PD loop?

The gain I used on our robot is 5 or 6... however, the output of the PD loop is then sent to our drive code, which incorporates an exponential drive algorithm.

The best thing to do is to use a printf statement right before the drive motors (or, even better, AFTER) are set--this will enable you to read EXACTLY what the drive motors are getting.

Since this may not be possible with the robots having been already shipped, I'll give you a quick fix:

By now, since you've probably figured out a minimum value that DOES make the motors move the robot, set a MINIMUM speed limit. Something like...

//150 and 105 are just arbitrary numbers; replace them with the minimum speeds that turns your robot

//copy this code for each motor
if (motor_speed > 129 && motor_speed < 150)
{
motor_speed = 150;
}
else if (motor_speed < 126 && motor_speed > 105)
{
motor_speed = 105;
}

Do that for both motors, and it should limit their minimum speed. If they're getting a value a little off center it'll increase their speed to the value you define as a minimum. That stops them from "humming" and actually makes the robot move, even at very low speeds as defined by the PD control.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

I'll try that. Good luck it Kansas City.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Hope that works for you!

Good luck, and we'll see you in March. :)

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

One week to Kansas City's Inaugural Regional. Good luck to all the teams attending. Let's make it a GREAT one.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Looking for a webcast so the community of team 2165 can watch the team during their first regional. Does anyone know of the URL where I can find this?

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

The URL is:

http://www.more.net/services/videost...trobotics.html

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

How are things shaping up?

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

For us things are going extremely well. I think the most our team could put on the rack in two minutes was 7. We averaged about 4 to 5. I was amazed at how many robots were not completed. More than about 60 percent of teams at Kansas City were not completed. I spent more time in other people's pits than I did my own. Along with three other teams we are working on completing a teams entire robot. All they had was a metal frame and the KOP and that was it. There was only one practice match that I know of where 6 teams were present. There was even one round where we were the only team on the field. Even through all of this the Kansas City regional is being run very smoothly and the judges and officials are doing a great job keeping the matches running on time.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Here's a more direct link to the live video stream:

MOREnet Streamed Events: FIRST

The first link under the "Robots Alive! FIRST Robotics Greater Kansas City Regional Competition" section on that page shows the field action. I just watched Match 14 (with the Bomb Squad's blue alliance winning 10-0). The video stream is very choppy - perhaps they didn't anticipate the number of viewers??

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

anyone know why they replayed match 6? or was it just a error on the site

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Before the alliance selections, a laptop was given away by a drawing of surveys completed by the teams in the KC Regional - Team #2164 was the winner!!

A member of Team 16 thanked the mentors and introduced a message from the Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius. She apologized for not being able to attend in person, but gave a very well-thought out audio address to the participants. The message, I think, made it clear that the Gov. "gets FIRST". The Gov. is part of a task force with other governors addressing educational needs for the US and believes FIRST is a very good example of what can be done to inspire students, especially in math and science.

The selections were completed, but not before a rookie captain got a "baptism by fire". The #8 alliance captain wasn't fully prepared (to say the least). When asked for his selection, he invited the top seed (#1 alliance captain team). The MC said he's sure you would have to have them as a partner, but they're not available. He asked to go speak to his coach - not allowed!! The rookie captain "interviewed" remaining team captains: "Who can score 3 ringers?". After he finally made a selection, the MC said: "the good news is you have a partner, the bad news is you have to select another". It was a pretty chaotic scene. Message to team captains: Have SOME sort of strategy (pick the top ranked available team or lowest team number.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

anyone know why they replayed match 6? or was it just a error on the site

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

I don't see any indication that Qualification Match 6 was replayed here:

FIRST KC Regional Match Results

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Doing Dean's homework pays off!

Dean Kamen made an appearance between the semi-final matches to introduce a special visitor to the KC Regional: Kansas Congressman Dennis Moore!

Congressman Moore admitted he knew nothing about FIRST when he stopped in for what was going to be a 45-minute visit. Three hours later, he proclaims "Dean is a Rock Star"! Congressman Moore said he would invite Dean to meet with Congress to talk about FIRST. What the Congressman saw there in KC convinced him that FIRST is the kind of program the US needs to remain competitive in the world. I think Congressman Moore "gets FIRST"!!

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Thank you for the updates. My internet won't let me connect to the web cast!!

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Bomb Squad has made a good showing. They've come very close to scoring in autonomous in the elimination matches with their award-winning (Controls) sonar. Their alliance partner just missed getting up the ramp in the 3rd match of the semi-finals against the #2 alliance, so the #6 alliance (2044-16-1981) was eliminated in SF2-3 by a score of 2-0.

The number #1 alliance (935-1775-1997) went on to win the Regional.

The webcast is very choppy - kind of difficult to watch the matches, but the audio is reasonably good.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Another example of Dean's homework paying off!

Kansas Congresswoman Nancy Boyda addressed the KC Regional crowd after Dean Kamen spoke to the participants and showed a video of his robotic human arm in action. Nancy Boyda declared that she was proud to be a geek (she has a degree in chemsitry) and was very excited about what she witnessed in the FIRST competition. Nancy promised that she would help lead action in Washington to get FIRST into many more schools in the US. The KC Regional provided an excellent showcase of what the FIRST program is all about to two members of Congress.

Dean asked the students to thank their sponsors and mentors for making FIRST possible. Dean indicated that he has received over 4,000 e-mails from FIRST members "doing their homework" and that it is paying off. He believes FIRST is ready to grow even more rapidly, to reach out to many more students and that getting government officials to attend the FIRST events is an important way to promote FIRST.

Congratulations to the KC Regional Organizers and sponsors for a very successful inaugural event and congratulations to the teams for their display of GP - you've all made very good impressions on people who can make things happen!

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

Thats not where i watched it from i watched it at home on the computer at http://www.more.net/services/videost.../archives.html.

were u actually there . cause i am from pennslvania so i wasnt there.

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

No, I also watched the (choppy) streaming video on more.net. I didn't tune in until Match 10, so it's possible Match 6 was actually replayed. Sometimes a match will be restarted if there's a radio problem or some other field issue. Maybe someone from one of the teams at KC can chime in on this??

Re: Kansas City Regional
 

I had a great time at the regional, and I can't be more proud of rookie team 2165.