Goal tracking sensors

[Carolyn Duncan]

So I'm curious to know how many, if any teams are using the new sensors we were given this year to track the retro-reflective tape on the goals? I don't recall hearing of anyone using this but I was just curious. If there are any teams who are using it, how difficult was/is it to use? What were the problems, if any that you encountered while trying to set it up? If you have already competed in a regional, was this skill useful? Any information on this would be nice to read. I'm very curious about it, I didn't have the time to look into the possibilities of this before shipping and still haven't actually looked into it...
I guess I should aslo say that team 86 is not using the sensor. To my knowledge we never even got the tape in the mail... oh well.

[AdamT]

There was one team at VCU that I noticed using it. It had a neat system where it tracked the balls up and guided it into a turreting shooter. It was a great idea, but it didn't seem to work to well.

[MrsT]

Yeah.......that was Robodogs (435) with the turet that followed the goal. Pretty cool design. 100% kid designed. No storing capability......sucked up ball & shot. Supposedly it worked in controlled environment with slow moving goal........but not in competition.

LisaT

[Elgin Clock]

We are using all the sensors and also a homade device to "see" the goals and navigate on the field.


I've said too much!

I haven't said enough!


"See" you all at NYC FIRST and UTC New England.

[asher]

we use them for two separate operations

a) autodocking to the goal, point the back of the robot at a goal and push a button, your locked on in no time flat (I don't remember the actually time, but even from quite a distance it was under 10 seconds, usually somewhere around 5 sec)

b) automated arm system, the hand sees the ball, and after the hand grabs the ball the arm goes up and dumps the ball into the storage basket on the robot

It took our programmer maybe 30 min, but he's really quite good, even if we never use it, it was sure some good entertainment while we ate dinner.

asher

[Perseus]

we might actually be using it to have a completely automatic drive. one of our members is working on programming an automatic system in which we can drive up to the center goal(using the censor), deploy the wings, latch and plant. i dont know if it would be as fast as if it was manually driven but it would be cool just to have

[Wetzel]

620 intended to use the sensors to track the goal.
The Real World beat them.

[rlowerr_1]

We use two of the sensors on the back of our robot. They tell us when we are lined up with a goal so we can dump our balls. when we are lined up we have a buzzer on our control board to let us know. works rather well.

[Carolyn Duncan]

WOW! I'm really looking forward to seeing how the sensors work for y'all. So if you see an odd chic wandering around the pits at nats, looking at the sensors it's me. Hope to see as many of y'all as possible.

[Mark Hamilton]

Our grand plan for the sensors was a little different: I cam up with the idea of using the sensors and a little reflective spot on the wheel to allow us to independtly measure the rotation speed of our wheels ( I realize this is not the ideal way to do this, but hey had to use the sensors somehow). Because we grab goals on the side, this would allow us to compensate for having only 1 goal, which makes us drag rather heavily to one side. Unfortunatly this was one of several 100 cool things we planned to do but did not have time. Maybe next year...

[ggoldman]

I tought about that too...

but there was a rule saying you could not use the tape on your robot...

Bummer


Gabe

[rlowerr_1]

You can accomplish the same thing without the tape. Anything reflective with work with the sensors you just have to position it right.

[ReijiH]

Evil thought I just remembered.....someone from other team was commenting on this thing about putting the laser reflector on a helmet and wearing it as a joke...hmm, since the goal's laser reflectors are at around head's height, wonder what happens. Of course, I'd bet nobody would dare try..hehe

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Nobody at the SBPLI Regioal used it. I didn't even see a bot with it on, but not using it

[Madison]

Just a warning -

As the day went on, the tape got pretty wrecked on the outside skirting of the goal.

It was replaced each night, but it may affect your performance in matches held during the latter part of the day.