IR Board Clarification

[Pavan Dave]

The rules, <R65> and <R69>, talk about what you can and can not do when it comes to the receiver and transmitter but nothing about using the specific receiver that FIRST gave us.

Can someone help me clarify this 'gray area' that says I can make my own IR receiver PROVIDED that I am following <R65> and <R69> by only transmitting four signals?

[Daniel Bathgate]

I'm fairly certain that you could use any device you wanted to during the hybrid period long as it follows the other rules. Other receivers would be governed by the rules for custom electronics. The "signaling device" is not limited to a remote control in the game manual, either:

Originally Posted by 7.2 DEFINITIONS

SIGNALING DEVICE: Any equipment used by a ROBOCOACH to provide external stimuli to the ROBOT.

I'm not sure why you would want to create your own IR receiver (the one FIRST provided seems to work well), but using a different technology that might have less interference to communicate with your robot during hybrid could be interesting... perhaps using ultrasonic as shown in the kickoff?

[keen101]

Maybe RF would be a better choice too.


Of course it would have to be far enough away from the 900mhz frequency that the radios use..... and comply with rules about RF....

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by keen101

Maybe RF would be a better choice too.


Of course it would have to be far enough away from the 900mhz frequency that the radios use..... and comply with rules about RF....

Unfortunately, you can't use RF:

Originally Posted by Section 8: The Robot

<R65>SIGNALING DEVICES shall be designed to communicate signals from the ROBOCOACH
to the ROBOT. SIGNALING DEVICES are excluded from Rule <R64>. SIGNALING
DEVICES shall:
...
a. All radio frequency communications (as defined by the United States Federal
Communications Commission) are explicitly prohibited.
...