Is it permissable to have an IR beacon

[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.