Is Aim Assistant Worth It? Are You Using It?

[JABot67]

I am always wary about putting effort into vision targeting because it is very time consuming to get working both quickly and accurately. In addition, every year there seems to be a way to get by without it. It is a complex solution for what is usually a simple problem.

Let's take 2012 for example. Everyone was saying vision targeting was required in order to be accurate, especially from the key. 3322's programming team spent days on end to get the vision targeting working, but what we realized is that the odds were against us. It takes a long time to process the information and get a heading, then more time to PID your drivetrain or turret to turn to that heading. Then if you want to be sure you've lined up correctly, that's more processing time. In the end, we scrapped vision targeting entirely because our driver had a knack for lining up correctly.

Our season turned out great! We had one of the most accurate shooters at each one of our events. One of the reasons was that our programming team put some very well-invested time into tuning our shooter's PID algorithm so its range was very consistent.

I heard the same kind of story from 67. They had vision targeting working, used it in some actual matches, and decided that they didn't need it because their driver was faster at lining up.

I know that the teams that are good at vision targeting like to increase their processing power by using an extra device on their robot, like a laptop. To me, that seems like too much effort for not enough reward. Why not have your programmers whip out some amazing autonomous modes, for instance?

Actually, I think a lot of the elite teams have programmers that do everything - multiple accurate, high scoring autonomous modes that incorporate vision targeting. But for the middle-resource teams, I would definitely recommend prioritizing pretty much anything else.

You can probably tell this is one of my "hard-line, won't-budge, cranky old man" opinions. I am like that, even though I'm only 23. But I am speaking in the capacity of someone who has experience on powerhouse teams and successful middle-tier teams. Everyone has different experiences in FIRST, and I am sharing mine.

An argument I like to make is: The last year vision targeting was absolutely necessary to complete a game task was 2007. Ever since then, teams have been doing great without it.