Is your team going to use a beacon tracker?

[Kevin Watson]

Just out of curiousity, how many teams have successfully built and plan to use a beacon tracker during the competition?

-Kevin

[sanddrag]

We built it but couldn't get it working yet. It didn't show up in the camera but we built it exactly to spec. We do plan on at least trying it.

[squide]

We really wanted to try it, but we still don't have IR Recievers. We have a beacon though!

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

We built it but couldn't get it working yet. It didn't show up in the camera but we built it exactly to spec. We do plan on at least trying it.

I'll be at Chatsworth Saturday afternoon and most of the day Sunday if you want help getting it working.

-Kevin

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by squide

We really wanted to try it, but we still don't have IR Recievers. We have a beacon though!

Why don't you have receivers?

-Kevin

[Avarik]

Though we aren't using it on the robot, I think I may experiment with them once competitions end.

[squide]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

Why don't you have receivers?

-Kevin

We thought we had them when we requested our missing parts, but apparently we didn't . Do they let you add sensors to your robot after it's been shipped to your regional event? Regardless, I think I'll order some recievers from Mouser or Newark to play around with

[Austin]

We aren't going to use a beacon tracker, but we've got something a little special up our sleeves.

[Bruce C.]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

Just out of curiousity, how many teams have successfully built and plan to use a beacon tracker during the competition?

-Kevin

We never did get our IR Sensors nor the IR LEDs from FIRST, so we aren't going to be trying it. We noted the shortages in the initial shortage list to FIRST. We got our other missing kit components, but never got the IR sensors or LEDs.

[ngreen]

We are planning on using the IR to hone in on the beacon but not to get there. It is more the macro to micro thought. Get close fast and then be accurate. The IR works great though. We needed to have a better way to attach the servos. Duct tape works but is not reccomended. And we needed longer tubes/blocks for the IR receivers

[bigqueue]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

Just out of curiousity, how many teams have successfully built and plan to use a beacon tracker during the competition?

-Kevin

Yes, we do have a beacon tracker.....it is a home design that we actually started two years ago. It is based on a rotating sensor picking up the IR off a 45 degree mirror.

We have it designed, prototyped and finally built/ We have the code written and working on the prototype. Out plan is to release the entire design and code to the FIRST community for their use. (we were sort of given the suggestion that the beacon detection might NOT be "optional" next year....)

Anyways, we understand the issue with reflections, so our software will be capable of tracking a large number of beacons, with a higher level piece of code (which we will also release) which does error detection to pull out the actual (real) beacons.

The output of the whole mess is an angle to the beacon from the direction the robot is pointing. (actually, it differenciates between the left and right beacon too)

We have two of these on our robot, and with each one triangulating to the two beacons, we think we can figure out exactly where we are on the field. (ha.....it works on paper anyways.....we'll see how it all comes together in practice)

Anyways, our intent is to post a whitepaper on it, release the designs (mechanical/CAD, schematics, BOM and code) and to have a seminar on the concept/design at the Manchester Regional. (and at the Nationals if we make it there)

We will be releasing information via our website very soon. (once we write it ;-)

If you are interested in what we are doing, you can email me.

-Quentin
(bigqueue_qlewis@yahoo.com)

[blindguyinanorg]

we planed to use the ir for a possition calculator ( along with gyro or wheel counters) but we fell short on people this year so i had to scrap it for more improtant things such as driving ha

[hay4man]

Mr. Watson,

Our team tried for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th weeks to get the trackers to work. During this time, all the mistakes as far as documentation provided by FIRST were discovered, in specific, the mistakes concerning the wiring of the beacon, AS WELL AS, the wiring of the sensors. I felt that I could trust FIRST's documentation, but now that trust has been lost. After all the aggravation caused by the situation with the documentation, we finally had it so that the sensors could see the beacon when we ran "Tracker".

Then came the tough part of putting the heat shrink on the sensors and attaching the sensors to the servos, which we did. They did not work, so we finally decided to give up. I eventually ended up with the idea somehow, that we may have over-heated the IR sensors by blow drying the heat shrink. If so, then the sensors are too sensitive. Another reason for giving up, is that we did not want to have to deal with the hassle of mounting the servos 44 inches off the ground, which is double the height of our tallest tier. I just felt like I couldn't trust the trackers. I am interested to see how dependable they are during actual game time.

If IR sensing is required in future FIRST competitions, I honestly believe that FIRST should get its documentation straight, and that FIRST should supply specific instructions (and warnings about over-heating using a blow dryer) that will work every time. It would also be helpful if the beacons were to be mounted at heights ranging from maybe 12-24 inches.

Alexander Hayman

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by hay4man

If IR sensing is required in future FIRST competitions, I honestly believe that FIRST should get its documentation straight, and that FIRST should supply specific instructions (and warnings about over-heating using a blow dryer) that will work every time. It would also be helpful if the beacons were to be mounted at heights ranging from maybe 12-24 inches.

Yes, I agree that the documentation was a headache that no one needed. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I'll make sure that folks at FIRST read this.

-Kevin

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

Just out of curiousity, how many teams have successfully built and plan to use a beacon tracker during the competition?

-Kevin

We are using beacon trackers...

We triangulated fixed waypoints using two trackers and two beacons. We created a program on the PC to generate two dimensional look-up tables where you constantly looked up the angle reported by each tracker, and the table would return the appropriate left and right motor responses to get it to your waypoint.

it does what we want it to, but it was a lot of work. It's nice because you can throw obstacles in the way of the robot, bump into it, push it, and it still gets to where it needs to go.

I'm still upset that I can't see to find which beacon type is on which side of the field though.

-Shawn T. Lim...