Is it permissable to have an IR beacon

[Mike9966]

Hi all,
I'm new at this so I hope I'm not asking something obvious, but can our payload specialist have like a hat or something on that would have an IR LED in it so our robot would know what station they are at??? And shoot balls his way?

Thanks
Mike

[Culvan Van Li]

I was thinking about something similar. Wearing a blue hat that the camera could target and send balls there. I believe that is against the rules. I was told that only the driver's station should have any method of controlling the robot. There are also rules against "decoratins" that give a compedetive advantage.

My new solution is to identify the team color lights in front of the driver's station and extrapolate where the refuling station is from that.

Andy

[Mike9966]

We talked about shirt color too, maybe something with white and black checker board, or a barcode on it.

I don't think doing so is controlling the robot other than the driver station any more than the pink and green posts on the trailers, or the color of the trailers, or the color of the lights by the pilot stations, etc.
They all just give us a reason to use the wonderful camera they have given us in the KOP.

Any other's with thoughts???

Thanks
MIke

[codykoppelman]

definately dont want to use a pink or green shirt/hat. im certain that would be against the rules. Interesting idea though, might want to ask it in the Q&A

[Tom Bottiglieri]

I feel like if you are accurate enough to shoot at a human player, you will be accurate enough to shoot at a goal.

[Mike9966]

Hmmm, perhaps,
At one time we were thinking of having a bot with a collector and a canon and would just drive around and pick up balls and the canon would dynamically track the fueling station and shoot the balls back there so a human rock thrower could shoot them in to the other guys bot.

We have pretty much decided not to do that now, but that's why we were thinking that if the fueling station person wore a beacon it would be easier to track their location relative to the bot.

Mike

[nathanww]

A thing to keep in mind is that this person is sitting behind a plexiglass shield, at an unpredictable angle relative to the robot, possibly with obstructions(other robots) in the line of sight. This means that recognition based on a shape or pattern like a barcode probably won't work, which leaves you with just using color as a beacon. Even with just a bright orange hat or something, the robot has to be able to pick up that signal and distinguish it from the background, which can be tricky in and of itself.

[EricH]

And here is what the GDC has to say about this sort of thing: http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...3229#post23229

Also known as: Don't use the vision target colors.

They haven't said anything about other colors.