Kinect or no kinect?

[Kpown]

what are the benefits of the kinect?

[b00mhead$h0t]

there probably arent many.

[Becca334]

I don't see many benefits.
If you can get the kinect working well though, that's 15 more seconds of having a chance to shoot.
But if your team is typically good with the good old autonomous, I'd stick with that.

[aRobotDragon]

I dont think there are many benifits it takes too long to figure out how to make it work

[Greg McKaskle]

Making it work should be no more difficult than installing the SW, running the driver station, and on the robot using a Kinect joystick during auto and making calls that are the same or similar to your teleop code. Remember that only one team is able to do this, and the others are fully auto. I hope all teams are able to do both.

I think the advantage of using the Kinect is to take advantage of driver input. Robot autos typically don't know about other robots and it isn't uncommon for them to interfere with one another or not respond well to unexpected field conditions such as a ball in the way. Drivers tend to correct for those conditions.

Greg McKaskle

[bearbot]

kinect at regionals wont have an impact like it will at championship. mY team was practcing with it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1O23...e=plpp_vid eo or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb7PV...e=plpp_vid eo

[KennyLives]

I can't see it being much more effective than the old-fashioned autonomous.

[Thundrio]

A few members on my team (me included) think that the kinect is unnecessary because as we see it, if you start with two basketballs loaded on the robot, and you start on the key, all you should have to do is point the robot towards a designated hoop during prematch, both shots should be made every time during autonomous.

Would anybody mind telling us why this is a bad idea (if it is)?

TYVM

[IrksomeZeus]

i don't think that that is a bad idea if you are able to develop a reliable shooting mechanism. However, i agree with Greg McKaskle that using the kinect is a great way to avoid unforeseen problems like robots in the way or a ball on the ground. Also with the connect control you have a)the adaptability to make a last minute strategy change based on other peoples successes or failures and b) the potential to pick up a ball and shoot it if one of your alliance members misses...

[Grim Tuesday]

Someone on my team asked this; my response:

You have Kinect enabled capabilities so that you can respond to whatever your opponent does with their Kinect. Maybe you can't anticipate it now, but you will sure be glad you can counter it when you get to competition.

[WizenedEE]

Originally Posted by Thundrio

A few members on my team (me included) think that the kinect is unnecessary because as we see it, if you start with two basketballs loaded on the robot, and you start on the key, all you should have to do is point the robot towards a designated hoop during prematch, both shots should be made every time during autonomous.

Would anybody mind telling us why this is a bad idea (if it is)?

TYVM

How long does it take to shoot? You could spend the rest of your time getting the balls from your bridge onto your side, which would be easier with the kinect.

Benefits? For starters, if you learn to use it right, it's essentially an extra teleopperated mode. This can be very useful if you want to change things up a bit, or not want a repetitive autonomous.

[Robby Unruh]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

Benefits? For starters, if you learn to use it right, it's essentially an extra teleopperated mode. This can be very useful if you want to change things up a bit, or not want a repetitive autonomous.

That's a pretty huge advantage imo.

Also, is anyone else having huge lag issues with the Kinect? We got driving today but it was near impossible with it's response time.

[Greg McKaskle]

The lag is affected by the speed of the laptop it is connected to. You may be able to improve it by trimming down what is on the laptop, making sure the kinect is not in a hub, etc. But it takes a lot of processing to estimate the skeleton. The read me for the Kinect gives the system requirements in case you are interested.

Greg McKaskle

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

The lag is affected by the speed of the laptop it is connected to. You may be able to improve it by trimming down what is on the laptop, making sure the kinect is not in a hub, etc. But it takes a lot of processing to estimate the skeleton. The read me for the Kinect gives the system requirements in case you are interested.

Greg McKaskle

Do we know how much processing power we'll have at the Kinnect station? or will it be the teams OC running the Kinnect? (In which case, the best processor/OC should be running the Kinnect station always)