Varied color light trick...

[Silent_Stryker]

it only makes sense. they used this year with one color to test the cathode idea. now they get to make it hard

[Marc P.]

I love the possibilities of multiple light colors... but I do see one small issue:

This year with just the green lights, I did see a number of cameras pick up other green sources besides the goal light. I saw a match on Galileo where a robot ran out of the starting box towards the goal, it's camera turned around, and it shot it's full round in the direction of MOE up in the stands.

If the lights changed to red I could see a team like 173 (the shirts in the stands, and the robot itself) as a potential target, or any of the many teams using blue. The current rules prohibit the use of colors designed to distract the vision system, and it's logical to assume if the color palette is to increase, so must the restrictions on team colors to keep everything in order on the field. It probably won't be a major problem, but it's just a thought based on what I've seen with the green this year.

[artdutra04]

I always knew Dave was the king of game hints, but never that Dave...

[Goldberg204]

2v2v2 anyone? Each team has a certain color

[CmptrGk]

Originally Posted by Marc P.

If the lights changed to red I could see a team like 173 (the shirts in the stands, and the robot itself) as a potential target, or any of the many teams using blue.

has moe had a problem with this in the past two years?

[Mike]

Originally Posted by CmptrGk

has moe had a problem with this in the past two years?

Our robot was the one Marc mentioned in his post. We shot a full clip (9 balls) at a MOE mentor who decided to stand up during autonomous

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by CmptrGk

has moe had a problem with this in the past two years?

Yes.

In Philadelphia in 2005, our camera locked dead onto MOE every time we lined up on the blue side of the field.

This year, at nationals, our camera had a sporadic lock on the MOE section of the stands in Galileo whenever we pointed our robot at them in the starting box. The dashboard feedback showed that the blob was bouncing around, but it was much stronger than anything of the random noise we got in the pits.

While clearly not intentional, MOE's bright green jersey's ARE confused for green targets by the CMUCam.

[Dylan]

Lol, that was funny, Bedford express was in a panicked huddle at first!

[Taylor]

As has already been mentioned, this rumor surfaced at West Michigan. One only needed a quick look at the field to see how impossible this would have been.
On the drivers stations are red lights and blue lights. Also, there are red and blue LEDs on the robots. So, if it were true, the robots would be shooting at the other robots and drivers instead of the goal.
Of course, the ramp campers and dumpers would still be OK.

[skimoose]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

Picture this-

different tasks around the field with different colored light guides. You program the robot to visit the different stations and use the guides to do the tasks. The field has screens so the robot has to explore to find the lights in auto.

This was close to my thoughts. Since the games seem to be 3 on 3 for a while. Why not a red, blue, and green target per alliance. Each alliance member chooses a colored target to track and each target is for a different autonomous task. Strategy is no longer just choose a starting position and a task, but now also requires tracking a different color.

Game clues this early!!??!!

[ahecht]

Originally Posted by CmptrGk

has moe had a problem with this in the past two years?

Most definitely yes. During one of our matches on Galileo we had a trim problem on our turret joystick, so in the brief second between when the robot is enabled and when autonomous begins our camera turned enough that MOE sitting in the stands entered the edge of the field of view and became a bigger target than the light. We ended up firing all our balls straight at them.

We're working on a MOE detection algorithm for next year.

[Alex Cormier]

Anyone get a picture of 'Dave's ladies' holding the lights or him and the shield?

[irishninja]

I'm super sorry if this has been posted. I skimmed this thread first and searched. Anyway, one of my friends poitned out, if you look at the 2007 gmae hint picture http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2007+game+hint

and you look on the back of the bot you can see the reflection of a red light, a ,green light and a blue light.

What if different lights were like stop lights? You could only move a certain direction when a certain light was on? Tricky.

[Donut]

Originally Posted by boiler

As has already been mentioned, this rumor surfaced at West Michigan. One only needed a quick look at the field to see how impossible this would have been.
On the drivers stations are red lights and blue lights. Also, there are red and blue LEDs on the robots. So, if it were true, the robots would be shooting at the other robots and drivers instead of the goal.
Of course, the ramp campers and dumpers would still be OK.

This seems to me a reason FIRST would do it; so you have to figure out a way to detect the target but not the drivers stations.

We solved alot of the accidental targeting issues by severely limiting the camera's range of view; the camera was not allowed to tilt low enough to see robots, and was not allowed to tilt any higher than something like 45 degrees. It also wasn't allowed to pan more than 50 degrees in either direction, and wasn't activated in autonomous mode until we started turning to face the goal (we wouldn't search while driving towards the goal).

[Jessica!]

I don't think the lights will indicate a change in teams, but I do think they will show up on the 2007 game field. Perhaps the lights will be different colors for different matches, and you won't know until each match starts...

Nonetheless, there is no question that the camera will become an even more essential part of having a strong robot, so teams that had troubles this year should work on getting proficient with the camera this summer. FIRST has been weening us into using the camera 2 years now, and I think it will be almost essential to be successful in the game next year. Also, I think auton will be essential to winning the game next year, as it set the precedence for the match this year, and gave the winning team a big advantage...