I was just wondering if anyone has considered connecting a usb webcam to the stamp, or acomplished this? I know the stamp is a digital device, so there should be some way to have the RC wirelessly send the data stream to the OI and from there to a laptop for viewing. If it is possible, how would you go about programing it? I think it would be sweet to have a (cheap!) internal cam on out bot that most certainly wouldn’t interfer with any other radio signals in the area. However, as a complete newb to FIRST, pbasic, and digital signals, I have no clue how to even begin, let alone make it work. Thanks for any info you might have on this idea, including if I’m completely bonkers
Thanks for the links (and yes, I did search before posting), but they don’t answer my question: Is it possible to wire a usb device straight to the pbasic stamp and have it transmit the information as part of its normal code loop?? Since I already know this should be techniquely possible, how would you go a about programing it? All the stamp has to do is record the usb input and transmit it verbose to the OI which can then send it, also verbose, to a laptop. however, what commands would you use for this? is there any pbasic commands that checks inputs, no matter where in the program, and respond to them (like a watcher, for those familar with other programing languages)? Thanks again!
No, you cannot use USB. It is not electrically compatible with the Stamp’s internal circuitry and would have a good probabililty of frying it. Furthermore, the 2sx (which is what we use) does not support interrupts. Finally, the Stamp has no data buffers, so it would be nearly impossible to deal with the speeds of USB.
assuming that he could figure out how to do it, electrically, I think it would be allowed as part of a dashboard system, as long as he is using the FIRST control system to send the data. The reason that other wireless camera systems are not allowed is that they are not using the FIRST control system to send data.
The USB obstical is easy, you just have a USB to serial chip (with buffer) on your custom circuit board, and interface with the programming port.
The hard part is how slow the stamp is, and how little data you can actually send back using FIRST’s control system. I don’t think it would be possible, because of those restrictions.
yes. I agree that if you had time and money, you might be able to get this thing to work, but even if you could, like the last guy said, you’d be smoldering your precious wireless bandwidth and minimal processing power which could cause your robot’s other controls to go sluggish or worse.
You are pretty much limited to 39 bytes/sec using OUTH every loop. 39 bytes/sec is not um…quite…fast enough to transmit video. You could send a 256 color image 66 pixels once a second. Or a 16 shades of gray 66 image 16 times a second. A 6*6 image is about the size of the green in your Windows logo on the Start button.
n[ate]vw wrote:
"You are pretty much limited to 39 bytes/sec using OUTH every loop. "
If you used all the analog inputs for video you could get 7 8-bit bytes / 26ms, or about 40 * 7 * 8 = 2240 bits/sec, or 268 800 bits / 2-min match. You’d need some circuitry to buffer the signal, and present it 7 bytes at a time, though.
You might get a whole video frame per season through, if you get enough practice time in enough regionals.
well as you may have gatherd from the other replys, there realy is no way to have a USB webcam on your robot… and besides its not allowd.
HOWEVER, if you wanted to use an imaging device to, say, find stacks, Parallax offers a product called the “CMUcam” which:
communicates using a TTL level serial port and has the following functionality:
>Track user defined color blobs at 17 frames per second, find the centroid of the blob
>Gather mean color and variance data
>Arbitrary image windowing
>80x143 resolution
>9600 baud serial communication
>Automatically detect a color and drive a servo to track an object
>Slave parallel image processing mode off a single camera bus - advance function
>Ability to control 1 servo or have 1 digital I/O pin - advanced function
>Adjust the camera’s image properties - advanced function.
*Originally posted by jacob_dilles *
**well as you may have gatherd from the other replys, there realy is no way to have a USB webcam on your robot… and besides its not allowd.
HOWEVER, if you wanted to use an imaging device to, say, find stacks, Parallax offers a product called the “CMUcam” which:
communicates using a TTL level serial port and has the following functionality:
>Track user defined color blobs at 17 frames per second, find the centroid of the blob
>Gather mean color and variance data
>Arbitrary image windowing
>80x143 resolution
>9600 baud serial communication
>Automatically detect a color and drive a servo to track an object
>Slave parallel image processing mode off a single camera bus - advance function
>Ability to control 1 servo or have 1 digital I/O pin - advanced function
>Adjust the camera’s image properties - advanced function.
