Does anyone know where we can get vinyl to make a control panel? I know they released the color codes, but in the KOP list it says “not available” for the supplier they used, I am worried about using another supplier and not getting the same color (which would not be the end of the world but I would like to make it as accurate as possible).
Thank you in advance, have a good season everyone!
I have been trying to find he correct color vinyl to make our own control panel with, but I have had little success. Have been looking at Oracal 651 or similar material, but the colors don’t match up very well with the codes provided in the rule book.
Yeah I looked at 3M and have the same problem. It would be nice to get the same material used on the fields so we are practicing in as close to a “real” environment as possible, we can always calibrate at the first district event but still looking for the right material instead of that.
Our team is going for some close but generic colors for now. If we do anything autonomously for the color wheel, we’ll use HSV so it’s much easier to tune/modify. Compared to RGB
IMHO this is a mistake for FIRST not to provide us this in KOP since they clearly know how to print vinyl (FLL fields). Since this is a very new type of “action” within FRC (using color sensors), I’d have liked more support on it. I am hoping a vendor comes up with this soon. We are pricing a local large format printer to do the work as another option. Please post here if anyone comes up with a good approach.
We’re using generic colors and then tuning on-site.
I think the approach @BryceHanson mentioned is the way to go and that’s exactly what we’re doing. You want to be able to tune your color detection at the competition so this helps you to work out your process.
We’re what doing:
Get some basic familiarization with the sensors using the supplied color swatches
Assembling a control panel using some readily available colored vinyl (or printing on matte photo paper on a decent inket to get nice well saturated colors if we can’t easily find something)
Work out our logic using our control panel
Work out and document a color calibration procedure that we’ll be able to apply at an event using the supplied swatches
Doing it that way helps you in developing your code and your tuning process so you’ll be ready to go.
– Chris Herzog - Joliet Cyborgs #4241
Keep in mind that you don’t actually need to build something that looks like a control panel from 30’ away - all you need is something that looks like a control panel where your color sensor can see it.
We don’t plan to be looking anywhere in the center part of the control panel with our sensor so that can be bare plywood - so long as the colors appear where our sensor’s field of view can see them.
– Chris Herzog - Joliet Cyborgs #4241
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