Ten Foot Pole behind the castle wall

[Stappy]

We asked if our drive coach could use a pair of binoculars to see our lift mech and were told no we could not as it would give an unfair advantage to our team. So we asked about the other team with the 10 ft pole and camera. We were told that was legal since it was attached to the driver station. I guess the assumption was it was attached by a cable because I swear I saw the pole sitting on the ground inside an orange traffic cone.

[M. Mellott]

Originally Posted by Stappy

We asked if our drive coach could use a pair of binoculars to see our lift mech and were told no we could not as it would give an unfair advantage to our team. So we asked about the other team with the 10 ft pole and camera. We were told that was legal since it was attached to the driver station. I guess the assumption was it was attached by a cable because I swear I saw the pole sitting on the ground inside an orange traffic cone.

So if those binoculars were mounted on a mini tripod set at the height of your drive coach, and the tripod was attached to the DS via a tether, bracket, etc., then it seems as though that would make them legal, right?

EDIT: Probably be better for one of the drive team to use the binoculars, since the drive coach cannot touch the DS.

[hardcopi]

We chose a 180 camera and shoot camera, gives us pretty good visibility. We make our driver practice with his back to the field driving just by instrument.

[Landonh12]

364 here - we asked this question on the QA.

We are doing this. We are mounting a 9 foot pole to our driver station. There is a socket for the pole to be driven into the driver station and we will secure it with a pin-lock.

Here is an image: http://i.imgur.com/YOI3awp.jpg

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by iggy_gim

When you say attached, how so? Was it standing on the floor, attached via a pole to the operating console or was it fully supported by the Operating Console?

Im not sure how they attached it but it was on the operators console it was not on the floor.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by iggy_gim

When you say attached, how so? Was it standing on the floor, attached via a pole to the operating console or was it fully supported by the Operating Console?

4009 had their driver station on a wooden board that held their DS, pole with camera and a large screen all in one setup. Pretty neat actually.
The best part was they were in Driver Station #2 so that alliance #3 Team 6175 could use it also to see the field for boulders.
We didnt need it since we have 2 cameras on our robot and just so happen was on the other side of the castle in DS #1.

We may employ something at our Hawaii event during Week 5 but not our upcoming NY trip week 3. We leave in 4 days already.

[iggy_gim]

Thank you for the replies guys. We at currently at NYC and used it during one of our practice matches yesterday and found it to a be a good help, especially when crossing defenses and getting around other bots. Looking forward to seeing it's usefulness in the remaindremainder of our matches.

[JohnFogarty]

Our team likely had one of the best implemented camera "periscopes" at our regional event. It was securely mounted to a retractable pole and securely fastened to our driver station.

We were told by the head ref in our second to last match that our pole/periscope was "un-safe"

I expect this to be an issue for teams that didn't implement the periscope as well as we did, and there will be plenty of inconsistent ruling across events. Maybe FIRST will have to put out an update on this one too....

[ajay16]

Our team used it thought our First District event (week 2), there were some questions about its legality, but the FTA and head ref came to the conclusion it was legal. However, we have been informed that there will be a meeting soon that will go over the legality of the periscope in future events as well as clarify the meaning to connected to the drive station. Our team, for instance, just had the monitor connected to the same power strip as the drive station but was not permanently succeeded in any way.