Everything so far has been focused on the robots… what about the OIs?
The coolest ones I have seen have been:
1138
They had a 3-part arm and for their OI, a scale replica of that arm on a platform. The had potentiometers at each joint so the controller would just move the model arm on the OI however he pleased, and the actual robot would do the exact same thing. They had markings for the different heights of the rack too.
1572
They had a claw that moved on a vertical track. The controller put on a “glove” to control the claw. A switch to move it up and down the track, and his hand to control the actual claw itself. With the “glove”, if the user closed his/her hand, the claw would close. If the user changed the angle of his/her wrist, the angle of the claw would move respectively.
What are other things that people noticed?
Post pictures?
There are always tons of people at the competitions we attend that love our team’s operator interfaces. And when they see that it fits inside our robot cart for storage and transport, they are even more amazed! Here’s a few pictures of our 2007 OI:
Dont forget 1538 - The Holy Cows. They had their OI in a briefcase. They would simply carry it to the driver station, simply open it up, and simply plug it in. (you catch my drift - simplicity) It was very aesthetically pleasing too, what with cow print on the inside and cool blue-lit silver knobs. It was accompanied by a cowprint-clad steering wheel too.
That’s somewhat similar to ours, we have some heavy duty case with the OI board on top and two PS2 controllers inside the actual case (foam cutouts), just plug in the board, take out the controllers and off you go!
My favorite had to be 1506 at Detroit (I just had to stop and take a picture)
I always loved Team 25’s arm controller from 2004. That was one of the most creative control systems I’ve seen. Very much worthy of the Leadership in Control Award it received. For those of you who don’t remember, check out page 22 of this pdf.
Two years ago (before the era of the chicklet) we had Xbox controllers to drive our robot. We took them apart, and rewired the buttons and joysticks so that we could use it for our robot. Also the OI was encased in a clear Xbox case. It was awesome, and unfortunately, i am unaware of its current location, esecially since we had to dismantle that years robot (sad).
Woah, take a quick peek of team 25’s arm controller. They just posted a pic. If anything derves to be called a cool OI, this does. Nice intuitive control.
Heh, actually I posted that picture. It’s their design from 2004 (see my post above). I thought it was strange that I couldn’t find it anywhere on CD-Media so I posted the one image I was able to find. It was really a cool design to see iin action.
I have to agree that our 2004 robot has the most innovative controller that we’ve yet implemented. Because it is so easy to use, and is such a nifty feature, we often use it for demos and allow the public to try it out. They find it very cool that whatever movement they make on the scaled model is mimicked by the robot’s arm. The most recent appearances of this robot have been at NJIT’s Tech Games, and our town’s Heritage Day Festival. (See attached.)
We also used two pieces of aluminum angle to limit the horizontal movement of the arm. The distance is scaled so that our arm will always comply to the 72 inch rule.
Also I had seen some arcade joysticks at All Electronics that I was planning to use for the drive controls, but when I went back they were all gone.
True true. We have one along those lines… We carry ours over and plug it in just like you… However, pragmaticism aside, the briefcase 1538 had added to the cool-factor in my opinion. Plus, it looked mighty clean
Ps. I believe it is “more simple” But then again I build robots, english isn’t necessarily my forte lol.
We have buttons, switches, and knob.
The other side is on white plastic and has our two joysticks. As you can see, the Computer Display thing is in the middle, seen in clear plastic. We have red neon lights the shine up through there.
It’s designed so you can slide the buttons and joysticks out and switch their orientation depending on what side of the field you are lined up on (so the driver is always closest to the center).
