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Originally Posted by Mr. Freeman
I came up with an idea for signaling to the robocoach when IR commands were received that would work fine for showing the state of the launcher.
Attach a disc to a servo, code the RC such that whenever the launcher is armed, the servo rotates the disc and the text (written such that it can be seen from a distance) "Launcher armed" is visible. When the launcher is safe, it rotates to "launcher safe". No lights to interfere with vision systems or distract other teams, no dealing with custom circuits and drawing power from the RC to power LEDs, etc.
For added safety, attach a spring or something to the assembly that will make the disc default to a third position, "SIGNAL LOST, STAND CLEAR", if power to the servo is lost or if it becomes disconnected.
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Now that's a really good idea. The disk could also be color coded green/red to make it even more obvious and universal.
I voted "Robot does not launch, think it is necessary." We chose to abandon our launcher design early on primarily because of safety concerns. As a relatively inexperienced team, we did not feel we could make a launcher safely enough to avoid danger to ourselves in testing, let alone at the competition. Although I'm certain that all of the launching teams have throughly thought through their designs to minimize risk [absolutely not sarcastic], others won't know about their robots and Murphy's Law will always apply. With most robots, you are safe from danger if you don't get close to it. With a launcher, the robot could be dangerous to your well being from a distance. As a member of a drive crew that has to interact with other robots, I personally think a warning of "hey, this trackball could potentially fly towards you at dangerous speeds" would be a nice courtesy, stored energy or not.
Lastly...
Quote:
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Originally Posted by squirrel
...and both operators have to each hold down a button on their controller.
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Giving the trackball the same respect as a nuclear weapon. I like it.