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Unread 23-02-2007, 15:47
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Re: Drive Systems... ...The FIRST Arms Race?

Yeah, I completely agree - it's difficult to do some of the work with Autonomous robots and sensor manipulation because it does change so rapidly from season to season, and it also depends upon the game as to whether it makes sense to invest the time in the technology. Take this year's game for instance, there is very little need for an accelerometer and/or a gyroscope - while some teams may take advantage of them to help them with some of their autonomous actions, the green light and the camera are all you really need to create an effective autonomous (some would argue that gear tooth sensors are all you need, but I digress). This year's game also didn't really need those sensors for in-game use, so for the most part they were played with and then set aside.

A lot of the responsibility for getting teams involved with the more advanced control system design is in the Game Design Committee. If they came up with a game that relied heavily on a particular type of sensor (or sensor fusion) then teams would embrace it. For instance the camera was a huge part of last year's game, the accelerometers were huge the year they had teeter-totters, and this year you've got ... nothing, really. I mean, you have 2 light sources which allows you to play with tracking/identifying multiple lights, but it isn't even mildly critical to the success of a robot. As far as I'm concerned the only "cool thing" they brought out this year was the lifting of the robots, and that doesn't even impact my controls team... though I must admit we did use the extra time this year to have a little bit more fun with our control system!

-Danny
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Danny Diaz
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