Team 766 Robot *On-board* Video

[yodameister]

No need to convince me. I had already planned on doing this very thing.

[IndySam]

Those were great. Thanks for sharing them.

[Rick]

Isnt this illegal? (alternate power source?)

[1359th Scalawag]

It's amazing Match 10 and match 6 show some pretty great views of our robot! A pretty cool different perspective. Amazing videos! Are you going to get the Elimination matches up soon? And Did you have the robo-cam up in our match against you that was 50-51? I would love to see that match from that perspective!

[razor95kds]

Originally Posted by 1359th Scalawag

It's amazing Match 10 and match 6 show some pretty great views of our robot! A pretty cool different perspective. Amazing videos! Are you going to get the Elimination matches up soon? And Did you have the robo-cam up in our match against you that was 50-51? I would love to see that match from that perspective!

we have video of all the matches. we will get the vieos up sometime nexxt week. we are still editing them and compressing them.

[Jeffrafa]

Originally Posted by Ricksta121

Isnt this illegal? (alternate power source?)

We have done the same thing at one regional last year and all of this year, only ours is a Oregon Scientific video camera advertised as a helmet cam. Last year we ran it on its own batteries, which is technically illegal, but the head inspector let us run with it since it had absolutely no impact on anything else about the robot and offered no advantage.

This year, to avoid any potential conflict, we ran wires into it and powered it on a 5v line supplied from the RC - which makes it entirely legit. The head inspector hassled us about it in Vegas, and feverishly looked for a rule that would disqualify it, but in the end he didn't find any legitimate grounds for removal of the device.

-Jeff

[pakratt1991]

Those are AWESOME!
Thanks

I hope to be able to do this one year

[T3_1565]

I have always wanted to do that. And that right there is why! thats so awesome!!!!

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Ricksta121

Isnt this illegal? (alternate power source?)

It is legal as long as it is drawing power from the +12V or +7 V batteries allowed on the robot (with a 20A or 30A breaker). A fairly simple regulator circuit can be built if it needs a different voltage. The camera cannot transmit (wireless) at 900 MHz or to the driver's station. Technically, it is a custom circuit.

I really think this is great! If the camera had a wider angle (even "fisheye") lens, you could have a better view of other robots approaching or more of the field, crowd, ...

If a wireless camera (at some frequency other than 900 MHz) were used, some really awesome video could be fed to webcast, TV, etc. When FIRST starts producing televised coverage of matches for a broader spectator audience, these sorts of on-board camera views will be very popular. NASCAR has cameras inside the race cars with pan controlled externally. Whenever there's a crash involving a car equipped with one of these cameras, it is replayed. Sometimes the video transmission is interrupted at the moment of impact, which can make the viewer "feel" the crash. I viewed a couple of these clips and get more or less the same sensation.

[octothorpe]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

If the camera had a wider angle (even "fisheye") lens, you could have a better view of other robots approaching or more of the field, crowd, ...

True. It became apparent when watching all the videos after competition season (and often struggling to keep track of where the other robots were) that a wider angle would be nice. Of course, the ideal would just be to have multiple cameras on the robot, say three or four. You could even mount each one on its own motorized assembly to get the external pan...

[fieldd]

Our team did something similar to this. Only the video is a lot worse quality. Still though, it looks pretty awesome when we ram someone.