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Did a little more research on this.

Found this on wikipedia: "Levels was originally known as Levels Cross Roads because of its location at the intersection of four roads in north-central Hampshire County"

Could the game involve a sort of "crossroads", or very central location of gameplay? I'm almost thinking a gamefield like 04' with steps and a central endgame.

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This has been mentioned before but: It would be cool if there were different targets that you had to sense which was the right one using IR and then use that one. I am putting my money on that right now. Prove me wrong and get a penny and some pocket lint :D

thanks, vivek

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Our team received an email, but to the best of my knowledge we haven't received the board yet. It may still be in the mail, or our mentor may have gotten it and not told us yet, or whatever.

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How about using a remote control to select one of 4 (or 16) autonomous modes after the field initialization?

I'd be playing with the hint board and last year's robot to see if I could make it do different things just by "changing channels" on an old TV remote (available at any thrift store)

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I don't think FIRST would take that risk, due to the fact that some moron with a universal remote sitting in the stands could probably alter the game...

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touche

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Wouldn't that only work if the moron's remote had been trained with the IR board? That's the sense I got from the user's manual.

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Well guys here's what I think:
The IR board says "2007 FIRST". I think this means we could be using 2007's Inflatable Rings again.

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That would apply to ANY use of the game hint board, wouldn't it?

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Good point.

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My initial suspicion is that you are right about using the IR to switch to one of four possible auto modes after the field is set up, but I have a few other thoughts to add based on our experience of using IR remote controls and PICs to run mini-sumo robots for the past several years.

First of all is the issue of channels. With RF transmitters you can change the crystal or frequency synthesizer to transmit your signal on a specific wavelength, and tune your receiver to only receive signals transmitted on that wavelength. Pretty much all IR remote controls, as far as I know, operate on the same (or overlapping) wavelengths of light. Therefore everyone is "talking" on the same "channel".

To make the signal stand out from the background "noise" IR remotes flicker the LED on and off. 38kHz is the standard for the Sony IR protocol, but other brands use other frequencies. The receivers are tuned to only receive a signal that flickers at the correct frequency. Since these flickers all occur in the same wavelength, however, they can jam each other when more than one signal is emitted at a time.

This means that having robots controlled by IR signals coming from more than one source, when each source is transmitting at the same time, could present problems. (I believe someone mentioned the challenges in programming more than one Lego League RCX unit in a room at the same time and the need to control IR reflections.)

It is also much easier to buy a $4.00 multi-brand remote and program it to use a given IR protocol (IE the Sony Protocol) than it is to build a Learning receiver. (You can receive a Sony IR signal with a PIC, a PNA4602M, and 12 lines of BASIC code. Reprogramming the remote requires four button presses.)

So why a "learning" receiver... perhaps because (as suggested earlier) the receivers will learn a signal from the field crew at the regionals. This way FIRST could ensure that the signal and modulation they are using are not used by any commerical IR remote control units, making it less of an issue if people in the stands happen to have "IR keychain remotes" and such.

However it is also possible for the RC... when hooked up to an IR LED... to be programmed to emit an IR signal. All you do is pulse a digital output, really. Each team could be assigned a particular code (team number, perhaps), and would train the receiver to pick up on this signal so that they could test whether or not they were transmitting properly. Perhaps you score by transmitting your signal to a goal. But that kind of clashes with the whole "jamming" problem.

In any case, I promised myself I wouldn't get tied up over the game clue this year... congrats to the GDC for making me break that promise.

Jason

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Did any one check the 2008 Blast Archive? I didnt see anything about a "December Gift" in there...

Keaton

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They tell us rhyming riddles, post crazy images, and send us things to examine.
I have a feeling that next year the hint will be to stick your hand in a box like those Halloween games where you put your hand in dog food or something and you have to guess what it is. :p (but of course instead there will be distorted melted things that disappear after a minute just to make it more complicated. lol)

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Here are my sleep deprived thoughts.

In the User Guide under step 5. Operation it states the signal is the strongest in an angle of roughly +/- 30-40 degrees from the normal... Hmm staying on course, stay the course, something presidential, the president works in the oval office, alas! oval shaped game objects. - Game objects will be white considering the color of the White House.

Can be trained with a universal remote... a tv watching robot competition. Bonus points will be awarded to the robot that switches their tv to the Colbert Show with Dean Kamen being interviewed.

This is a receiving device and therefore I think that it has to do with strengthening our autonomous mode. For the past two years, FIRST has given us the option of tracking a green light. This may be an alternative or an addition to the process. The robot may receive a signal from a field transmitter and act accordingly. This signal could never come from any human operator for that would defeat the purpose of autonomous mode. The receiver would be programmed at the beginning of a regional event to correspond to the events specific transmitter.

Hmm IR is a sensor that reads a certain spectrum of light, light is always prominent during the competition, maybe there will be various light sources (4?) the robot will be able to utilize during a match.

Of course, this is all speculation. However, my final idea comes back to the remote control idea. I'm thinking about when a pesky neighbor has a remote to your tv and they change the channel while you're watching it. Just imagine a randomizer or FIRST official that uses this receiver to disable it or make it function in a different way. Dave will have a master remote to all of our robots!!!

Happy holidays everyone!!! 20 days to go.

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What if... since we all are making hypothesis... that the IR will be on each robot to tell them which period it is in, as in offense or defense or free for all, like 2006 game. Which may mean multiple autonomous modes... as the IR will tell the robot which state its in? Or it could mean that autonoumous mode is broken up into parts or autonomous mode may be different per match so that some times one team will be offense or one team will be defense.

I am so excited I can hardly finish up my last few college apps (4 left out of 15).