REWARD OFFERED: A CAPPED VISION TETRA ON THE CENTER FIELD GOAL

[JonBell]

Originally Posted by team66t-money

First off from being a member of team66 thanks to all with the support for our alliance during the semi finals and finals we went 6-0 no loses it was so great and congrats to all who received a award today at glr. thanks to 67,68 we were a great alliance also we did cap 3 times in practice on Thursday and once today in the finals i know ya said close isn't good enough but it wasn't really on all the way but it was on (center) our main problem was they changed the camera code on us and decided not to tell us but before the semi finals we figured it out but once again we came this close () from getting the center all the way on so far i think we are the only ones to even place a tetra on any goal if not please pm me i would love to find out who else figured it out we spent 3 weeks doing (not easy what so ever) but hey yeah once again thanks to all for all the support.

Not quite using the vision tetras, but...
At our regional, two teams (Elm City and Shelton) had "lifter" bots (one had a scissor lift, the other just had a long pivoting platform). They found that if they could start with the extra tetra (or whatever it's called), they could simply orient themselves towards the side goal, and then in autonomous they just had to push it on to the goal. If they brought it down with enough force it would also knock off the hanging tetra (a 4 point play!), and this worked pretty much every time.

Our bot uses a fairly inarticulate arm, so it wouldn't be very feasible for us to do a similar move, but instead we just always start facing the side, and can always knock down the hanging tetra for 1 point. It probably wouldn't be much harder to pick it up after we knocked it down, back up, and place it back on the side goal, all using dead reckoning. I didn't think of this until we were in the semi-finals though, so I didn't have time to try it at our regional.

I didn't watch all of the matches, so I can't say that no one capped the vision tetras, but 230 (shelton) and elm-city were both pretty sweet with their 4 point plays.

So the moral of the story?
Perhaps dead reckoning and using the hanging tetras would be easier than relying on the camera?

[team66t-money]

Originally Posted by cfox2008

Yep, 66 did, and i think they either capped a side one or came pretty close in the finals against 1023, 322, and 308

Hey as a member of team 66 i just wanted to say you guys did a great job yesterday and wish you the best of luck in your next comp. and i heard many great things about your train that was going all through the comp. Travis

[Pin Man]

so how many times has this task been accomplished? I have yet to see it...

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Pin Man

so how many times has this task been accomplished? I have yet to see it...

So far just by Team 66.

[Ductapemaster05]

I must ask if capping without the vision system in autonomous and just by using a preset program

[Wayne C.]

Week 3 is UPON US.

THe TIKI STILL AWAITS

Will the miracle happen at NJ?

WC

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Week 3 is UPON US.
THe TIKI STILL AWAITS
Will the miracle happen at NJ?

WC

possibly... however...

There are some stellar teams who have not played yet this year. A few of them are going to be in West Lafayette, Indiana at the Inaugural Boilermaker Regional. I'll bet a Dew that someone from the Boilermaker Regional caps a vision tetra on the center goal in automode.

I'll take one bet. I say it happens in Indiana. You say it won't. First PM to me accepting this bet gets it.

Andy B.

[Validius]

Originally Posted by MikeWasHere05

And what if nobody capped at our first competition? But we were by far the closest.

carefull... team 66 did that at GLR

[Mike]

We just capped a side goal today, with the right placement tomorrow the tiki will be ours.

[russell]

So that makes two teams now? Congratulations to those teams, I am impressed.
But seriously, FIRST calls itself a "robotics" competition, yet only two teams so far have managed to even come close to accomplishing the most vaunted element of this years game...... I do have to say I was also *very* impressed by 492s performance last week in Portland. Their autonomous was awesome! I was the leader of our drive team and pit crew and also our programmer, so I was occupied during autonomous, drive, and pit time, but I do know that when they were on our alliance in a practice match I watched their robot drive out and grab an autoloader tetra, then come back and place it perfectly on the corner goal. Plus they won the regional. In any case congrats to any team that does any tetra handling in autonomous!

[Babyhueyhnx]

we have come close so many times today. unfortunately we did not cap the center because of some unfortunate events. First we got the tet and then began tracking a yellow line of tape laid down on the field by first to repair the floor and second the same thing happened but this time it tracked a yellow extension cord out side of the field. we have come so close. we will succeed by tomorrow. (I hope)

[ldeffenb]

He says, as if in a trance, "I see the Tiki moving off to another team" and sighs deeply.

I would love to see video of these "close" shots at the center goal! Especially those that followed the wrong yellow! Having stood as coach (and head of the software group) and watched our own lift backdrive at the final crucial moment, I can certainly identify with how you felt.

If you'd like to see videos of two *very* close attempts at the center goal with a vision tetra (along with the initial tetra!), download "20050312 Vision Tetras.torrent" from my BitTorrent tracker at http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net:30049. Remember, this was our first and ONLY regional competition (we're not a rich team).

We have a camera on board, have code to identify all 8 possibilities from each of the three starting points, drive paths to acquire and deliver those tetras to the center (and, in some cases side) goals, only to discover that our drive and lift were slow enough that we only had a chance at delivering the center 2 positions to the center goal.

That's when we decided to use the motion to handle the initial tetra as well (hey, 3 points and owning the center in autonomous is better than 0 points looking like a sitting duck). (Want to watch painful replays? Download "20050310-12 386 Auto SloMo.mpg.torrent" for slow motion reruns of all of our automous runs. They'll make any software team cry from the effort wasted when software meets hard(ware) reality!)

We now know that we're tilting too far towards the goal and that our lift motor backdrives (watch closely in QF4-2) and those problems will be corrected in Atlanta. If no one does it before that, it'll be a race to the finish as far as Team Voltage 386 is concerned!

We *will* do it (vision tetra onto center goal) in Atlanta!

Lynn (D) - Team Voltage 386 Coach and Software Mentor

PS. Download a BitTorrent client at www.BitTorrent.com or www.BitTornado.com (Windoze only).

[ldeffenb]

If you'd like to browse vision tetra driving plans, I've posted our Triple Play Autonomous Route Visualizer (TriPlay) to BitTorrent at http://ldeffenb.dnsalias.net:30049. Download "TriPlay.zip.torrent" which should deliver a .zip file containing TriPlay.exe. This is a Windows GUI executable written in C and talking to the native Win32 API, so don't be surprised at how small it is. The same source code also builds and runs on a PocketPC.

Once run, it shows the Triple Play field. You can click on initial robot positions and goals and tetras to see what all our robot actually knows how to do in autonomous mode. The center line is if everything works and the two outer lines are what happens if we push min and max tolerances on distances and turns. The robot ends at the green rectangle with turns and/or stops at the intervening yellow rectangles.

If you click on an auto feeder and the corresponding home-row corner goal, you'll see that we know how to do that from any starting point as well.

Problem is, with all of this software design and implementation, the robot isn't fast enough. Sigh....

Lynn (D) - Team Voltage 386 Coach and Software Mentor

PS. The .EXE is virus/worm free as far as I know. Run it through your own scanners as I'm not responsible for anything that might happen to it between me and you.

PPS. If someone *really* wants to see the source (it's grungy and wasn't written for readability), drop me a PM and I'll send it out *after* Atlanta!

[Aur0r4]

Ah, the vision tetra. Depending on how the rules for the reward have worked out, we might not get the tetra first chronologically (we're in Toronto). But, my R&D team and I have spent a most of our lives over the build season putting together a rad vision system. What have you all gotten to work? We ditched the FIRST camera and now have a webcam and motherboard on our bot. We've been trying to find out if any other teams have gotten the cam2 to work. We wish you all good luck. May the best system win, eh.

[Wayne C.]

Another week down and still the central goal goes uncapped......

But recognition to 237 for their several EXTREMELY close attempts at NJ today.

We gave them a "partial tiki" for their close calls.

But the TIKI still awaits.

Keep trying.

WC