[BB] Something to end your week

[Joe Ross]

http://frcdirector.blogspot.com/2011...your-week.html

Good Evening Teams,

I hope you enjoy this peak behind the curtain.


93 days until Kickoff
See you then!

Something new in the kit...

[SteveGarward]

I predict a big game of Robot Dance Dance Revolution

[mesamb1]

I am thinking human player. If you look at the forums on the other people who have developed code for the kinect to work in labview, the one issue is a way to connect it to the crio. the driver station already has the usb ports. In addition the object id code(the hardest technical part) is already written to detect human movements

[Travis Hoffman]

All I have to say is, that's a pretty big curtain if there is a mountain hiding behind it.

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

All I have to say is, that's a pretty big curtain if there is a mountain hiding behind it.

This blog did peak[sic] my interest . . .

[AdamHeard]

They said it was going to be used on the operator side. If so, I hope it's more in 08 style, and not a replacement for the option/ability to drive with joysticks (that would be an AWFUL decision).

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

They said it was going to be used on the operator side. If so, I hope it's more in 08 style, and not a replacement for the option/ability to drive with joysticks (that would be an AWFUL decision).

2008-like hybrid mode would get interesting with 6 HP's/Robocoaches waving their arms around at the same time.

I just hope that there's enough testing and documentation on this thing to make it relatively easy to use at some sort of level...

[Duncan Macdonald]

Think this is what Dean had in mind? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUf-YPJC2F8

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKx5_3HUAho

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

Think this is what Dean had in mind? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUf-YPJC2F8

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKx5_3HUAho

Probably the funniest Robotis Related Videos I've seen. Great Job Tweedles!

[dudefise]

I'm thinking its going to be semi-autonomous like 08 or possibly be used as a human player interface?

No matter what, it'll be interesting to see how teams use it.

[apalrd]

I talked with Bryan (BJC) and Nick (dsm33) directly, and Jim Zondag via email about this today. As we are a beta test team, we only have to wait until Monday to see our Kinect.

We talked about possibilities of the Kinect on the robot and DS end.

We all agree that using the Kinect on a driver station is a very very bad idea, as joysticks are much more direct in use, and the driver can command specific operations easily.

Some of us think that it could be useful on the robot end, however:
-It is not a light sensor (weight-wise). It has two cameras, an IR laser, four microphones, and a motorized base (yikes!)
-It cannot interface directly to the cRio, requiring at least a single-board computer to interface to. For weight reasons, we obviously want a processor that dosen't need a large heat sink, and the lowest-power processors aren't likely to run windows 7. Luckily, there are linux drivers for the Kinect, and its embedded nature means we can run without a local interface (no GUI or graphics processor requirement).
-This brings our total requirements to:
*cRio (in kit)
*Kinect (in kit)
*Single-board computer with embedded linux programming skills (???) - OR - larger single board computer capable of windows 7 which requires much more power and cooling and .NET programming skills (???)
*A challenge which can't be solved any other way to make this all reasonable (this really scares me)


I think its much more reasonable to assume that the Kinect is provided because Microsoft is trying to promote it, and probably donated it, and that the use for it will be negligible. Plus, how do they expect it to work on the field with multiple robots and Kinects (as the Kinect would likely be confused by other IR patterns from other Kinects, especially 6 operating at once).

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

Think this is what Dean had in mind? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUf-YPJC2F8

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKx5_3HUAho

And how would robots respond to such expert "input"? Perhaps it would look something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOWYVT5xABA

[rachelholladay]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I just hope that there's enough testing and documentation on this thing to make it relatively easy to use at some sort of level...

Well as one of the hardware beta test teams, Im about to found out. FIRST shipped one to my house today..

[akoscielski3]

Originally Posted by rachelholladay

Well as one of the hardware beta test teams, Im about to found out. FIRST shipped one to my house today..

Do you know who shipped it? Was it FedEx?

[Tom I]

I'm thinking the Kinect will be used in conjunction with the human players, very much like '08 was with the IR remotes used to guide the robots in autonomous. I can't see it going on the robots and serving as anything more than simply a regular camera. Look at what the Kinect was made for... it was made to interact with people, bodies. It only makes sense if it's a human player input. Obviously the drivers won't be controlling the robots by dancing out the Y-M-C-A (although that would be priceless to watch! ). I would also venture the guess that it's not going to be used on the robots, as that brings into question issues of power, weight, and interaction with the cRio, as well as the complications of having multiple cameras with multiple sets of IR lasers on the field. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say it'll be used during autonomous.

That being said, I think the Tweedles were on to something...