pic: Game hint

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by galewind

In my opinion, the issue with IR in 2004 was that the transmitter needed to be built by hand from diodes, etc, and there wasn't enough incentive in the autonomous period to try to work with it. Don't forget, it was also the first year that teams had the PIC (vs the Basic Stamp), so they had to learn a new programming language as well.

Infrared as a technology could be well-done in FIRST, if it's well-supported and people have time to play with it. I think this just may be what FIRST is trying to do. If it's a DIFFERENT technology, then it very well could be FIRST's way of trying to provide us with some info ahead of time (once the site is active).

There were also a lot of "noise" issues. IR reflecting of of the field endwalls confused a lot of robots that did get sensors working. I seem to recall our robot tracking a brick wall once. Actually I think we were using an EduBot for a test bed at that point. An auto focusing video camera could interfere as well.

I think the use of coding is intended to help reduce inadvertent interference like that from the video cameras. But that still doesn't deal with reflections and an object does not have to be shinny to be a good IR reflector. The only way to prevent reflections from being an issue is to not give those photons anything to hit.