Programmers: I Have A Challenge For You

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Which is not at all what he said. In the future we should try to be more precise on what we mean especially when complaining about things.

You must be new around here

I'm a big fan of the "Stand on the Shoulders of Giants (tm)" I like to use other peoples ideas/products/code/etc. to get started. Once I have things in place that work I can start refining / optimizing small parts to make them better. I know that I can dig iron and coal out of a hill, but it does not mean that I want to make my own steel gears from scratch.

So from a few posts up. I would use the CMU camera and it's code. Once I understood how it worked, I would start changing sections out to make it better and better. While there are other platforms you can use, any of them are better than starting with:

main(){
}

as a starting point.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Foster

You must be new around here

A man can dream can't he?

[ptan]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

I purposely did not want to use the CMUCams because I honestly want to experience the process of making such algorithms. ...

hmmm... Interesting. The link I provided did NOT have any reference to CMUCams. It is a basic Introduction to Robotics class, where all the math and materials are put online. (My daughter is being a teaching assistant in this course next semester).

I find it fascinating that people here are jumping to conclusions without checking out the facts (or links in this case). CMU does NOT just make the CMUCam !!!

In any event, the course itself is useful to take a look at for the ideas and the math behind a lot of the robotics. Why do you want to go ahead an reinvent the math when you can just look at the math and find out if you want to use it, or better still, find something better!?

[ptan]

Originally Posted by Foster

You must be new around here

I'm a big fan of the "Stand on the Shoulders of Giants (tm)" I like to use other peoples ideas/products/code/etc. to get started.
...

Agreed.

As an Engineer, I can definitely state that in the Real World, you have to build on what other people have done. I don't see anything wrong with doing that in school or robotics competitions.

This reminds me of one of the Science Exhibits I once saw titled: Baking an Apple Pie from Scratch.

Step 1: Create the Universe
Step 2: Create Life on Earth
Step 3: Create Apple Trees
Step 4: ...

The point is, you have to start somewhere. Don't be too arrogant as to think that just because you didn't invent it, it is not useful.

[DDSLoan96]

What you could try doing is incorporating Kinect into your Robot as it has depth and color perception built in and that could help in a game that may be like Overdrive...just a thought

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by DDSLoan96

What you could try doing is incorporating Kinect into your Robot as it has depth and color perception built in and that could help in a game that may be like Overdrive...just a thought

Not exactly, you still have to write drivers for it and I am not sure if most of the image processing takes place on board on the Kinect or its processed on the 360 itself. Now it would be a pain in the butt either way. If it is onboard, there would be a fair amount of reverse engineering and getting the drivers to work, the second way, you have to program everything your self.

I am not going the kinect route like I mentioned before.

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

Not exactly, you still have to write drivers for it.

It's already been hacked, and there are open source drivers for Linux.

[EricVanWyk]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

It's already been hacked, and there are open source drivers for Linux.

You forget that David prefers to create things himself. He'll create his own drivers just as soon as he finishes converting sand into processors.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by DDSLoan96

What you could try doing is incorporating Kinect into your Robot...

It's very likely that the Kinect's depth perception hardware will be prohibited on the robot under the "no lasers" rule. We'll find out next month whether it's an option.

I'd like to find out if two Kinect sensors pointed at the same object would interfere with each other. Does anyone here know if someone has tried it?

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It's very likely that the Kinect's depth perception hardware will be prohibited on the robot under the "no lasers" rule. We'll find out next month whether it's an option.

I'd like to find out if two Kinect sensors pointed at the same object would interfere with each other. Does anyone here know if someone has tried it?

There is minimal interefernce between multiple Kinects when pointed at the same object as long as the devices aren't right on top of each other or pointed right at each other. We have not gotten this far at work, the above represents reports from the OpenKinect community.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It's very likely that the Kinect's depth perception hardware will be prohibited on the robot under the "no lasers" rule. We'll find out next month whether it's an option.

Haven't IR range finders always been legal? [Standard disclaimer about last year's rules]

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I'd like to find out if two Kinect sensors pointed at the same object would interfere with each other. Does anyone here know if someone has tried it?

This video is first example I've found of two images being merged in a 3d environment. He talks about and shows the interference, which is fairly minimal.
Note the video is actually a 3d recreation, notice how at the end he is able to move around the space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-w7UXCAUJE


also here's a video of mit's kinectbot
does 3d mapping and gesture recognition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRPEns8MS2o

[gblake]

link to a 5th Gear "AI" FYI update in a related thread
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=21

[theprgramerdude]

Has anyone tried yet to simply use the Crio as an I/O device, and use it to send all images/Sensor data to a super-extra-beefy laptop with a modern GPU that can handle all the thinking for it? I'd imagine using something like a few cameras and then trying to perform a SLAM on the inbound stream would easily exceed what the Motorolla is capable of doing, but easily within the reaches of a CUDA-powered laptop.

[Suitster]

Gravedig Post:
With the introduction of the Kinect this year, that may be a better system, as one could program it to recognize game objects and robots.
At least I think so.
I was thinking about trying this, but my summer project is getting a crab drive to work