Bring Back the Rotating Light

[The Lucas]

The rotating light is right where I like it ... on top of our tower in the pit. Those things were heavy. For most teams they either broke or were hidden (do you know how many visiblity arguements I had as an inspector?). Spare Parts ran out of covers, while we were up to our knees in shards. Teams routinely forgot to change their cover color. Does anyone remember how difficult it was to isolate the grounding on the light from your chassis?

I like the Bike flags. They are light weight, cheap and highly visible (above the bot). Queuing hands out the right color flags to the teams so there is no confusion. The rules regarding them are easy to follow and even if a team forgets their holder (many have) they can make one in 15min. Plus it is a real crowd pleaser when a big hit sends a flag flying (one went into the stands at Philly ).

[ahanktcd]

Originally Posted by Mike AA

What about a bubble of LEDs say, 20-30 bi-color, red/blue. with a constant on controlled by the controller for which color it has. Simmilar to the LED this year but about 20 times brighter and constant on. I liked the visability of the rotating light but not the size nor weight. A bubble of LEDs would weigh probably around 4 ounces and would be highly visable and still small ( and cheap/inexpensive).

-Mike

I'd agree with this! I've got 192 white LEDs grouped into 16 vertical bars under a clear plasic cover. A solid-state rotating light. I use this on my bicycle at night... low power and VERY, VERY cool. (Also useful at robot demos) With cheap LEDs from ebay, it cost about $30. It may be too expensive for FIRST, but it's low-power, lighter weight, silent, and much more durable. We just need a really good, solid Lexan cover (unbreakable) and we'll be all set.

[Tim Delles]

I have to say I much perfer the LED's we have now. The light was pretty hefty and if it wasn't in good enough site for the inspectors it was a pain to move. Also that thing had to weigh a bit more than we all thought.

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by ahanktcd

I'd agree with this! I've got 192 white LEDs grouped into 16 vertical bars under a clear plasic cover. A solid-state rotating light. I use this on my bicycle at night... low power and VERY, VERY cool. (Also useful at robot demos) With cheap LEDs from ebay, it cost about $30. It may be too expensive for FIRST, but it's low-power, lighter weight, silent, and much more durable. We just need a really good, solid Lexan cover (unbreakable) and we'll be all set.

My old team (308) did this in 1999 and it worked very well. We had an array of about 50 LEDs on each side arranged in a ~4" X 8" rectangle. If I find a picture, I'll put one up.

[Richard Wallace]

Still no poll?

I'm against bringing back the rotating light. Yes, it looked cool and conveyed the "danger, stay back" message better than blinking LEDs or flimsy flags. But its weight, ampere draw, space claim, fragility, and inconvenient lack of electrical isolation from its own mounting studs combine to make it a really undesirable robot part.

I like the flags as alliance IDs. And I'd like to see a slightly more robust LED for use as an IFI diagnostic.