What's the verdict of on-robot cameras?

[ToddF]

Al,
Would you have any pull with the rules committee that might allow your view on this to be written into the rules? It would help eliminate any controversy during robot inspections.

I tried to mount a Kodak playsport on our robot two years ago, and was told by the lead inspector at the event that it would require a call to national headquarters to approve a special waiver.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Todd,
I follow the GDC direction and the rules that they make. In this case there is some established guidelines. LRIs are trained to get in touch with me if they have questions. All of them will have my email and phone during the event season. Lacking contact with me, they also have other contacts that they should attempt to get a decision from, including my boss at HQ, and the the Director.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by ToddF

I tried to mount a Kodak playsport on our robot two years ago, and was told by the lead inspector at the event that it would require a call to national headquarters to approve a special waiver.

It appears that at least some Kodak Playsport cameras have wifi, which could cause the inspector to invoke [R67]. Additionally, the rules about devices with batteries were loosened last year.

[Phyrxes]

For Gopro cameras the Wifi capability is an addon that can be removed for field usage. Otherwise it allows you to control the camera with a smart phone or even stream video.

[Mark McLeod]

Here is pertinent 2012 season Q&A. The add-on camera would have counted as part of the total robot cost.
This is the only direct reference I found.

Can we mount cameras on our robot to record the robot's point of view for public relations and not count this on our "on robot budget" as long as we do not use the recording during the competition and the data is not sent to the cRIO or driver's station? Also, do mounts to these parts count as well? FRC4084 2012-02-05

The cameras and their mounts would count towards the budget constraint outlined in Rule [R13] as they do not fall into one of the exemptions listed in Rule [R13A-G].

[eliman47]

I lost my go-pro skiing, getting it crushed by a robot is WAY cooler n that

[ToddF]

The models we use are storage to SD card only. It's good to know we'll be able to shoot video this season. We were up against the budget cap last season, so we would not have been able to slip a camera onboard.

[jvriezen]

From a common sense point of view:

On board cameras during real competitions provide a great public relations aspect to promoting FIRST and FRC. My thoughts:

• Restrictions on WiFi are certainly reasonable
• Restrictions against using the recorded footage for a competitive advantage within the same competition are reasonable (but hard to enforce, like many other rules.)
• Including camera in bot weight, height, volume limit is reasonable
• General safety considerations are reasonable
• Disallowing due to battery is unreasonable
• Disallowing due to budget limitation is marginal, but this should not usually be an issue anyway, since cameras can be had for <$400.

Of course the GDC's answer is final, but I would hope the rules are arranged so that we don't have to jump through hoops like getting waivers to get good video, like our Duluth Double Shot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2KIVicKIOk

[Gary Dillard]

Most of the discussion I've found from searching deals with using cameras for recording for post-match use. But it doesn't appear that there are any limits (other than those mentioned to pass inspection) regarding using something like a smartphone as a camera / processor for image processing and tracking and then feeding that information to the cRIO. Assuming we can find a smartphone for <$400, is it legal to use it as a custom circuit?
Also, regarding the $400 limit, I assume it would need to be the cost without an associated data plan subsidy which makes them pretty expensive; however, since refurbished phones are so readily available for <$400 (especially older models), what do you think about using the advertised cost from OEM's or major re-sellers of a non-subsidized refurbished phone as the cost for accounting purposes?

[pathew100]

FYI, the latest generation of GoPro cameras (Hero3) has WiFi built in. It can be disabled (and must be on an FRC robot, obviously).

[JesseK]

Gary, those are great questions. I'd also throw into that mix -- how would you interface the phone to the cRIO? Seems like you may be able to get away with the cheapest/smallest Arduino setup possible that converts USB data packets to Ethernet packets ... but maybe you have something else in mind? Seems like you'd also have a great setup to siphon & store any images from the USB onto an SD card for post-match use.

A phone seems like the perfect self-contained processor...