Re: Kinect is Legal for Both Drive Station and Field Use (Here’s why)
 

David, I would be very interested in seeing you develop a system out of two webcams that provides the kinect's capabilities. I suspect the engineers at any of the large console suppliers like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo would be equally as interested.

Max, as I understand it the IR lasers extend out in a spread pattern. The provide full depth information at thousands of points and combine that with full color video. The Kinect does not just take 2 dimensional pictures of things. It provides distances, widths, heights, and all at a speed that can record high speed movement in real time and reconcile that with a full color picture. This system could be used in FIRST to emulate the Lidar used on so many DARPA vehicles for full field navigation.

Indeed, David, this system would be ideal for a fully autonomous robot. How's that going, by the way?

The software and hardware has already been developed by thousands of engineers over a number of years, using technology by many different countries. It works in ANY ambient light condition because of the IR - even in nearly pitch black. It's accurate from around 1.5 feet to 20 feet - 1/3 of one of our fields.

Max, that's really pretty exciting stuff. The year you put one of these on the robots and use it in autonomous is the year you win the innovation award available at every competition you attend. Awesome. I'm sorry to see FIRST rule it out this year, though I can't see that rule in place for long.

Re: Kinect is Legal for Both Drive Station and Field Use (Here’s why)
 

I don't think I'd use it for driver station control but Kinect is incredibly exciting a robotics sensor. I would really like to use it in future years. I really hope next year we can make this happen.