FALCON Open-Source Object Recognition System Now Available!

[Eldarion]

All,

I have decided to make my award-winning FALCON Object Recognition System open-source in the spirit of gracious professionalism, and also in the hopes that it will find use among FIRST teams and grow even better than it already is. I have relased it under the terms of the GPL.

I would appreciate feedback regarding the website design, Wiki structure, and user manual user-friendliness .

If you use the system and like it, please consider donating an old Victor 883 to me so that I can continue working on robotics-related stuff.

The project webpage is viewable here: http://www.falconir.com

Enjoy!

[Mike]

Great move

By doing this you let the project help more teams than that small segment that can afford a $250 camera system. Although it may not seem like much compared to a $6,000 kit cost, to some teams its a large price.

Again, good job.
-mike

[JBotAlan]

Whoa, cool! Thanks!

Originally Posted by Eldarion

I would appreciate feedback regarding the website design, Wiki structure, and user manual user-friendliness .

2 things:

-How do I know what upgrade to choose when ordering the Spartan board? I didn't see a model number of any sort...

-The homepage is very full of graphics. It takes forever to load on a fast connection. Tone it down a bit?

JBot

PS Thanks for making it open-source. This is a great contribution and I plan on helping as much as I can.

[Eldarion]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Whoa, cool! Thanks!

You're welcome!

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

How do I know what upgrade to choose when ordering the Spartan board? I didn't see a model number of any sort...

Did you follow the link in the Wiki? If you click on that link, and then click "Add to Cart", you will get the screen that I attached. Select the option that I highlighted in red, and you should be set!

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

-The homepage is very full of graphics. It takes forever to load on a fast connection. Tone it down a bit?

Sure thing; I am adding a forum right now and will convert all my BMPs to JPEGs during the site upgrades. (I forgot to do that )

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

PS Thanks for making it open-source. This is a great contribution and I plan on helping as much as I can.

I look forward to seeing your contributions!

[Pavan Dave]

WOW! The world is very flat...
(I am reading The World is Flat and I just finished the part about the #4 flattner of the world.)
___________

Back on topic, I love this program. I read through the manual and you did a fine job with this and I think many teams will use this and improve upon this before next year to make it perfect..

Pavan.

[Eldarion]

Originally Posted by Pavan

Back on topic, I love this program. I read through the manual and you did a fine job with this and I think many teams will use this and improve upon this before next year to make it perfect.

I'd love to see what Dave Lavery and the GDC could do with autonomous mode if they had one of these at their disposal! Could we have a 30-second autonomous mode with multiple tasks? (Wishful thinking, I know...)

The forums are now up and I have tried to reduce the page load time; please let me know if it still takes too long to load.

I'll try to put a cleaned-up copy of the sample drivers out within a couple of weeks.

Thank you everyone for your encouragement!

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by Eldarion

Did you follow the link in the Wiki? If you click on that link, and then click "Add to Cart", you will get the screen that I attached. Select the option that I highlighted in red, and you should be set!

Aah...I didn't see that yesterday...are you playing tricks with my mind?

Thanks again for this amazing contribution. I'm sending the info to my mentor so maybe (I doubt it, but just maybe) I'll have this ready for Atlanta. (*cough*yeah, right*cough* )

Now, on a 1024x768 desktop, I have to scroll horizontally on the RequiredHardware wiki page--the screenshot needs to be scaled down a bit.

Once I get the hardware, I'll definitely help with the content on this site at the very least; I can add screenshots, etc..

Great stuff!

JBot

EDIT: Are you planning on making the wiki open? I might contribute later on if it is.

EDIT again: does the board come with a ribbon cable, or do I need to scrounge something up?

EDIT yet again: and does the JTAG cable come with the board or do I need to order that separately?

[Eldarion]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Aah...I didn't see that yesterday...are you playing tricks with my mind?

Thanks again for this amazing contribution. I'm sending the info to my mentor so maybe (I doubt it, but just maybe) I'll have this ready for Atlanta. (*cough*yeah, right*cough* )

One can only hope...this was one of the reasons I released this system shortly after we were kicked from the running for Nats. I was hoping there might be another team crazy enough to try it for Nats...

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Now, on a 1024x768 desktop, I have to scroll horizontally on the RequiredHardware wiki page--the screenshot needs to be scaled down a bit.

Should be fixed now.

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Once I get the hardware, I'll definitely help with the content on this site at the very least; I can add screenshots, etc..

Great stuff!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

JBot

EDIT: Are you planning on making the wiki open? I might contribute later on if it is.

Yes, it is open. Email or PM me for the edit password (mainly used to keep spammers off of the Wiki)

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

EDIT again: does the board come with a ribbon cable, or do I need to scrounge something up?

I put some assembly instructions here:
http://www.falconir.com/images/cable_construction.jpg

There was a link in the Wiki under the "Required Hardware" section. You will need to scrounge up the parts to make it with, though.

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

EDIT yet again: and does the JTAG cable come with the board or do I need to order that separately?

A JTAG cable comes with the development board.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. If you want the IFI drivers in their current, "disheveled" state, just let me know. In fact, if you wouldn't mind cleaning them up...

[JBotAlan]

I just PM'd you.

Just out of curiosity, did you have any gain problems with the camera sensor (that seems to be the problem with our CMUcam more than anything)? And how well did it track for you? Was it distracted, as the CMUcam was so often, by vapor lights in the shop? Did you pull any Innovation in Control awards at competition?

I have some other things that I need to do during code windows this week, but after West Michigan (and maybe during, even) I will start playing with this (unless something else code-wise breaks).

One other thing: did you find a good way of mounting this? And did you use the FIRST pan-tilt mechanism with it?

Sorry for bombarding you with questions...

JBot

[Eldarion]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Just out of curiosity, did you have any gain problems with the camera sensor (that seems to be the problem with our CMUcam more than anything)?

Sunglasses solved that!

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

And how well did it track for you?

Very well; it never lost a lock, either on the practice field or on the competition field.

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Was it distracted, as the CMUcam was so often, by vapor lights in the shop?

Nope. It even ignored the big projector at the regionals!

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Did you pull any Innovation in Control awards at competition?

Yup, one at St. Louis. At Midwest, the arm change fouled up the autonomous code too badly for it to work.

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

One other thing: did you find a good way of mounting this?

We zip-tied the cameras to a long piece of angle iron with holes drilled for the lenses to stick out. When this was mouted at the top of the robot, it looked like a praying mantis. This prompted the name "Buggy" for the cameras.

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

Sorry for bombarding you with questions...

That's OK!

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by Eldarion

Sunglasses solved that!

I thought you were joking, but a quick search here revealed that you weren't.

Alright, just waiting on my mentor to order. What was the shipping time for you on the board?

JBot

[Eldarion]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

I thought you were joking, but a quick search here revealed that you weren't.

Alright, just waiting on my mentor to order. What was the shipping time for you on the board?

JBot

We used the express Saturday delivery option, as I found out the development board I was going to use had a fried pin on it. Needless to say, the replacement came the next day! (It also came with a HEFTY shipping charge, somewhere around $50 )

Try UPS Ground, it should get to you in a few days.

The sunglasses were actually doubled up (two lenses on each camera) because the green lights were so insanely bright. Basically, you want them to appear medium green, not white.

[JBotAlan]

I can't seem to navigate on the FALCON page anymore. What happened? None of the buttons work...

[Eldarion]

Originally Posted by JBotAlan

I can't seem to navigate on the FALCON page anymore. What happened? None of the buttons work...

That's wierd, it works for me.

Do you have JavaScript disabled?

[JBotAlan]

Originally Posted by Eldarion

That's wierd, it works for me.

Do you have JavaScript disabled?

Now it works...it just didn't work at school. Weird...

Why use JavaScript? I mean, for simplicity's sake... (then again, I hate JavaScript all around)

JBot