Rule against Sirens?

[The Lucas]

We use a rumble pak that vibrates when we grab a ball. That doesnt make much noise and gets the drivers attention (they never look at LEDs). We used the rumble pack last year to indicate when our turret sees the target. I have heard other teams use them as well (not sure who). Rumble paks are easy to reverse engineer to work with a digital out (heck if convicts can figure out how to make tattoo guns with them, then it shouldn't be too difficult for a young engineer).

I will not say anything about safe noise levels (no one would take me seriously coming from a team that got loud noisemakers banned ). However, I believe audio cues should be taken from the coach only, not the control system.

[Tanner]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

We use a rumble pak that vibrates when we grab a ball. That doesnt make much noise and gets the drivers attention (they never look at LEDs). We used the rumble pack last year to indicate when our turret sees the target. I have heard other teams use them as well (not sure who).

That's pretty creative. I would have never thought of that. Awesome.

-Tanner

[BJC]

My team (33) is using big LEDs to let the drivers know when something important just happened.

LEDs blue = ball possessed

LEDs green = lined up with a goal

LEDs red = latched onto tower and ready to hang

The last two were not functional at Kettering but will be at Troy

I think LEDs are the way to go because you can use them for multible functions. Although it does alert the other teams to our current scoring abillty ... Oh well well be getting hit anyway

[sparrowkc]

We have one of these buzzers mounted in the center of our DS
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2062394
It turns on whenever we have a ball in our possession. As a driver, I can say that it is tremendously helpful and has definitely improved our performance. Panel indicators and LEDs aren't nearly as good because they require the driver to look at something other than the robot, or at least interpret slightly more visual data. I think that its quite a stretch to suggest that an intermittent buzzer of reasonable volume is going to bother your team mates in the middle of a supercharged match with music blaring and people cheering all around them.

Edit: I'm going to go ahead and recommend that specific buzzer from radioshack. Even though ours is just something someone happened to have, it looks just like that. It draws 15ma on 3.3 Volts, so you'll have to use one of the high current digital outputs. Hook the negative wire from the buzzer to the digital out so that a logic low turns it on-- the outputs can sink more current than they can source.

[BJC]

Sorry if I wasn't clear


The big LEDs are on the robot and very visible.

[apalrd]

BJC, they are automotive cold-cathodes. They are also very large, 12" long tubes, compared to LED's. We are powering them via Spikes on a dedicated 12v 20amp breaker, so no 3.3v DIO's here.

[BradMello]

Originally Posted by The Lucas

We use a rumble pak that vibrates when we grab a ball. That doesnt make much noise and gets the drivers attention (they never look at LEDs). We used the rumble pack last year to indicate when our turret sees the target. I have heard other teams use them as well (not sure who). Rumble paks are easy to reverse engineer to work with a digital out (heck if convicts can figure out how to make tattoo guns with them, then it shouldn't be too difficult for a young engineer).

Team 78 uses something very similar, we've used modified logitech dualshock 2 controllers for the last two years. The logitech dualshock two controller is the same model as the standard controller provded with the FTC kit of parts....only with a rumble feature. Last year we simply rewired the motors that controlled the vibrate inside the controller directly to the digital output of the DS and controlled it accordingly, but this year it required the cypress board to achieve the same effect.

By using the can bus on our jaguars we can monitor the current our vaccum is drawing and trigger the vibration motors when the current drops (when we have a ball in our possession). As a driver its particularly helpful when going for the balls that are against the bump nearest to me, which I can barely see.

[Dad1279]

Driver should be looking at the robot, so we put a light on the robot, activated by a vacuum switch on our ball sucker.

Vacuum switch is fairly inexpensive, and commonly used on high efficiency home furnaces.