Visibility

[Eric Kosek]

Has anyone else thought about visibility being an issue for drivers this year?

I see the scoring platforms being completely full of stacks especially near the end of the season. With 3 good robots, I could see 6ft stacks almost all the way across both bumps.

That being said you will have two six foot walls that you wont be able to see while you are still trying to stack more bins.
This will cause a problem for teams that wait until the end to stack those co-op bin in the middle.

[Mike Marandola]

The stacks will only make it harder to gather totes near the step. For stacking there will only be visibility issues on the platform closer to the step since the two platforms overlap slightly. Depending on your driver station location you'll be able to see more or less of it.

[AllenGregoryIV]

A suggestion for short robots.

Bike Flag

[catacon]

Put a webcam or two on the robot. You should be able to get images of a useful size at a usable frame rate with the allowed bandwidth. It may not help with knowing the absolute location of the robot on the field, but it should be enough to aid in navigation.

Bike flags are a good idea to quickly find the robot.

[tindleroot]

Originally Posted by catacon

Put a webcam or two on the robot. You should be able to get images of a useful size at a usable frame rate with the allowed bandwidth. It may not help with knowing the absolute location of the robot on the field, but it should be enough to aid in navigation.

Bike flags are a good idea to quickly find the robot.

Our team seems to be leaning towards camera - it makes the game kind of like a video game for when we can't see the robot behind stacks

[catacon]

Originally Posted by tindleroot

Our team seems to be leaning towards camera - it makes the game kind of like a video game for when we can't see the robot behind stacks

Exactly. I've heard that kids these days are good at the video games, so they should feel right at home.

[loyal]

could use sensors to stop and or turn the robot away from a stack so as not to knock it down along with a camera.

[x86_4819]

A 360-degree array of ultrasonic sensors happens to be really attractive after reading how easy it is to knock stuff over. The drivers could get little red arrows on their camera feed if they are getting close to any tipsy stacks!

[faust1706]

"why not an aerial camera?" I suggest half jokingly.

[Jarren Harkema]

I love this idea.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...15&postcount=7

[faust1706]

Exactly what I was thinking. It could even be something you make at competition if you realize visibility becomes a problem.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Eric Kosek

I see the scoring platforms being completely full of stacks especially near the end of the season.

We can only hope that we have visibility problems! I'm not counting on it...

[Briansmithtown]

What about an Oculus rift!

[zinthorne]

I think there will be strategy to what order you stack when alliances get the capability to do it. Most likely when an alliance has the ability to stack all the bins they have had enough strategy to build a robot that good and to get them that far that they will have an order of stacking to avoid visibility problems.

[JCharlton]

To give people an idea of what you might see from the drivers' station I did this quick example. There are four recycle bins behind the stacks. See them? (Sorry, haven't applied materials for field yet.)