Onboard Live Feeds from Robots?

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

There are few problems with doing it live:

1) video transmitters can create interference,
2) there's likely to be "drop outs" as the robot moves around and,
3) there's already discussion about the inability to watch "the game" (see: ZOOM OUT!).

I think some kind of replay of on-board shots would be really cool, but not necessarily live views.

These points are not necessarily true. Most video transmitters that are inexpensive rely on analog transmission, not digital. These devices broadcast on the same frequencies regular TV stations do, which in the case of VHF is 30-300MHz. IFI's radios are on the 900MHz portion of the spectrum. Testing in 177's shop with a wireless camera, we got a range of about 50 feet before the signal started to degrade, so if the receiver was mounted on the radio pole (or even in the rack), there would be no problems. I can't see why robot motion would cause "drop outs."

The usefulness of on-robot cameras may be questionable, but it might be neat for autonomous, the end game, or particularly interesting shots in the middle of the match. It would be up to the video mixer to determine what he thought was worth display on the big screen.

Last year, WPI's Lens and Light production team mounted cameras above the goals for Battlecry. You could see robots shooting balls into them, which was a really unique shot no one else ever thought to set up. A camera on some sort of remote control swivel tripod in the center of the rack might be interesting too.

Who knows, but there are plenty of interesting things left to do with video that FIRST hasn't done yet.