We did not have an opportunity to learn how to use the camera kit or autonomous made during this season’s competition and would like to get acquainted with it during the off season to better prepare ourselves for next season…
Can anyone tell me the best way to get started with experimenting with this camera kit, what utilities and code is available, and what all is needed (which parts i.e. the RC, the back up battery, etc) to make something functional?
Please include any helpful links…
Also, any helpful suggestions are greatly appreciated…
At the very least, you’ll need the control system (RC, etc) along with 12 volt (main battery) and 7.2 volt (backup battery) power supplies for the RC. You’ll also need two PWM cables for the camera power and serial data. If you want to use a pan/tilt assembly, clearly you’ll need that.
As for code, I believe EasyC comes with code for the camera, but I don’t know anything else about it. If you feel like using MPLAB, the code of choice will be Kevin Watson’s from http://kevin.org/frc. LabVIEW can be used for calibrating the camera (this shouldn’t be necessary, esp if you’re just practicing), and there is also a Java applet floating around that does the same thing, but without LabVIEW. Also, if you use K. Watson’s “Bells & Whistles” camera code, it has a menu interface that lets you change calibration settings on the fly.