Re: Recieve ours
 

Same thing I said when I saw it. It's smaller than the CMU camera board, by about half.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

As i just finished reading through all the other posts I have a question for Dean Kamen, Dave Lavery, or our new sponsor diversified Systems (or any other official FIRST people): since it IS the season for gifts are there any other nice little hints you would like to give to the good little boys and girls who spend so much time theorizing and reading this thread? If there is a place with divsys's CAD file for the board I could use a link. Thanks and happy holidays!

Re: pic: Game hint
 

For the chip is FIRST sending out backups to teams or just one? :confused:

Re: pic: Game hint
 

Ben, and all our friends at Diversified Systems Inc:

Thank you so very much for the generous donation. I humbly apologize for even thinking that DEC was involved (tells you where my head is at: I did not even realize it was December!) and failing to recognize your company's involvement. A big thanks to Vishay as well!

It must be so cool to work at (own?) a place where they have pick-n-place machines AND wave soldering equipment. Kind of like my idea of an amusement park, or maybe a shopping mall....

-...-

Anyway, Team 1676 got their little envelope today, and I think everyone needs to be reminded: This board is NOT large. It's about the size of the sensor board in the KOP last year, maybe 1.5" x 2.5"? The little square of paper with the web address on it is smaller than a business card. Think Small. All the more reason the believe it'll be mounted to the robot.

So, repeating what 09randy (oh, ydnar90) wrote: Hey, how 'bout a poem to go with this hint?

Don

Re: pic: Game hint
 

Maybe since every team is going to program this circuit with their own remote, perhaps the PIC contains enough RAM to download the settings to the camera for detecting different colors of goal lights.

It would be up to the driver team to bring their robot close enough to the driver station to control the PIC with the team's remote to detect the ever-changing goal light.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

I would say just 1 per team because they are donated by Vishay and it may be a loss to the company. However, you could ask him or www.divsys.com to be sure.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

Tried out ours tonight, but it doesn't appear to be working as expected.
It seems to learn about four different remotes (found one it didn't acknowledge at all and another it objected to via the error LED), but after going through the learning sequence it won't respond to any of them in any way.

BTW
One of the traces from the unmarked white connector appears to go to the learn button.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

3 days early what? was an 'official clue' supposed to come out today?

Re: pic: Game hint
 

It might be rejecting the programming if the remotes are working on frequencies other than 38kHz. I would try some other remotes or verify that the ones you are working with operate on the correct frequency.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

It was supposed to be delivered today, apparently. Joe got it Saturday.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

Thanks Mark. That supports the theory that it will be programmed at the regionals to work with the field. In the mean time, we use any remote we want. We will use our remote to test our bots to see if they will do what we design them to do with respect to the, thus far, unrevealed game.

Once we all see the game, I think this little puzzle will all make perfect sense.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

This has been an impressive thread with all the speculation as to how this IR board will be used. Here is my two cents. Think about what FIRST has always done...they want the teams to develop solutions to problems. NASA eventually wants to put up bases on the Moon & Mars. You need robots working together to make that happen. I bet that the KOP will contain an IR transmitter that will mount on the robot along with this receiver. Robots on the field are going to have to work together to accomplish a task such as a coordinated lift. Four outputs - UP, DOWN, FORWARD, BACK come to mind. The instructions for setting up with a TV remote are so you can test the bot before competition. The white plug would be for regional programming when you bring the robot up for inspection so everyone has the same "learned" program. The LED's on the board would be for diagnostics when checking the bot out during the build and confirming the programming at the regionals. Most likely wrong, but its a thought.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

Umm.... I'm not exactly sure which wires do what. which leads do you have to strip back and apply power?

From the manual I think it's "saying" Brown and Red are + Posotive, and Orange, Yellow are - Negative



Bonus question: Does anyone have any ideas as to hook this up to our robot as a sensor for "pre-testing"? TTL port?

or just apply power, and then wire 5 - 8 to spare PWM cables. To the white wires?

Re: pic: Game hint
 

Never mind. I couldn't resist. :D

OK, so I found an old 2pin sensor (female) cable end, and connected it to the two lower right hand pins. The one labeled "2"(RED?), and the one nest to it which I am assuming is 4 (Yellow?)


Anyway it worked. I was able to program code 1 with a button on my cheap DVD remote.

As for the Sensor part.... I will assume you connect them to old PWM cables. However I could be wrong, so I'll wait to hear otherwise.

Re: pic: Game hint
 

Mark,

With the speculation about RoboLaser Tag, could the response be to shut down for a period after receiving a signal? Is your sensor still unresponsive?

Have any other teams found results they are willing to share?