Kinect or no kinect?

[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)

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

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)

Per the kickoff video, the kinect gets plugged into the team's computer.

[Greg McKaskle]

The Kinect Station is a display/feedback device. The Kinect is not plugged into it, and team code doesn't run on it. The Kinect Station is relayed the same Kinect Server data as the robot, and it draws the standard skeleton so that the driver knows if the Kinect sees their hands, feet, and other body parts.

The Kinect USB cable is plugged into the OC laptop and the Kinect Server on that computer does the work. Other OC computers have a Kinect Server running on them too, but without a Kinect plugged in, they will mostly snooze.

This configuration will also allow teams to know ahead of time how the Kinect will respond when you get to the field -- it is your code, your computer, and your robot, you are just borrowing the field Kinect and using the display for driver feedback.

Greg McKaskle

[Wetzel]

We've decided to push it to our would be cool but only if we get our more important stuff done first. With little experience with our programmers, we are leery of trying lots of new things during build.

Wetzel

[Zuelu562]

Currently I'm actually developing a true Hybrid mode; it will do some tasks autonomously, but it will get to a point where it's waiting for the human to make the movement that will start the shooter.

Pros:

1. something cool to demonstrate in the postseason and even during build (to demonstrate to potential sponsors for example)
2. relatively easy to do (in C++, i've already figured out how everything works without a drivable robot)

Cons:

1. If you have experience and a lot of time and/or sensors, true auto is probably simpler to achieve.

You can setup a wait time to prevent multiple balls entering the same hoop, but it's easier to make sure there aren't 6 balls trying to get into the top hoop in the first 3 seconds with the kinect.