Hello Chief Delphi! Just a quick questions, I’m wondering if there is a list of legal and/or illegal coprocessors for vision detection. I know that raspberry pi’s and arduino are allowed, but I’m wondering if coprocessors like the Beelink Ryzens are allowed. Thanks!
Assuming the rules don’t change this year there aren’t restrictions on vision coprocessors. This thread has been very active on the topic. PhotonVision Beta 2023: AprilTags
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The only real restrictions are that it cost less than $600 (per 2022 rules, might change for 2023?), and not violate any other robot rules (notably can’t use wifi to communicate, needs to either have an integral battery or be powered from the robot battery [DC-DC converters from that are fine] or 5V USB battery pack, etc.).
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Thanks, where can I find these rules?
The 2022 rules can be found here: RAPID REACT - Season Materials | FIRST (specifically the ROBOT construction rules section). Note these rules are the 2022 rules; we won’t know until kickoff what the 2023 rules will be.
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I believe the only actual prohibition (except for price) is actually a second RoboRIO. Don’t know why you would, but they’re fairly explicit in R701 that you only get one.
Therefor would a laptop be allowed then? I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone using a laptop, but 254 used an android phone in the past I think.
Yes, if it’s less than $600. I personally think it wouldn’t be worth the weight penalty. A phone would work too, but you’d have to figure out how to get Ethernet to it to communicate (I think there are dongles that work).
The biggest downside of separate batteries is it’s one more thing to charge and keep track of charging for.
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Confirmed recently that latest Android release plays well with Usb-C to Ethernet adapters
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We can use phones?! I wish i had known that earlier…
idk if this is in the same vein, but do inspectors get mad if you put a go pro on your robot for only media reasons? Let’s say you put on a $601 action camera on the robot. Is it included in that price restriction and does it count towards robot weight? Again, only for media purposes.
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It definitely counts towards robot weight. You also have to disable wifi. Technically it should also be below $600 since it’s part of the robot, but an inspector might be more lenient on that if it’s just for media purposes. Do go pros actually cost that much?
As long as it wasn’t being used as a camera source i wouldn’t have an issue with it (and tbh i wouldn’t even look up the price).
With that said I would draw a line at having a DSLR or equivalent on a robot. (Mainly out of respect for the DSLR owner)
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GoPros are in the $350 to $400 range for the camera alone. (R301 compliance GOOD.)
Their batteries are integral. (R602 compliance GOOD.)
They’ll need to have wireless disabled. (R707)
The biggest issue is that if you’re running a GoPro or similar as a media camera, it needs to fit in size and weight. It’s not specifically allowed or disallowed in the rules that I can see, though GoPro is specifically referenced. Hmm… (@Al_Skierkiewicz, @ChuckDickerson, I’m not seeing anything in R or I rules about media devices attached to robot. Used to be something about “at FIRST Engineering discretion” some many years back–don’t even see that on a quick skim. Is it too late to request that someone add an explicit allowance?)
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but not in the context of being exempt from any other rules than an example of a small, integrated battery. If there was a bill-of-material rule, I’d say it has to go on the BOM.
I agree there is no such thing as a “media” device - I say it’s a robot device.
I don’t see how this could ever happen. There would be no good way to draw a line between robot devices and non-robot-devices that are part of the robot. Who’s to say that a device that is not connected in any way to other robot devices isn’t providing a competitive advantage by allowing after the match review? Or providing weight ballast - another passive, disconnected device that IS subjected to rules?
There are CD threads about different robot inspectors catch or allow different devices and configurations. My team once at the last second wanted to put a GoPro on the robot. We did ask an inspector if we had to get re-inspected or reweighed and they said no since it was obvious we were under weight and it would be mounted well enough not to create robot barf on the arena floor. Nobody thought about the BOM until now - years later - that we might have violated the total cost limit.
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It has been done before. I stand by my statement that there was at one time a rule in the Manual that “FIRST Engineering must approve such devices” (paraphrased, of course–it’s been years).
All it really takes is a statement somewhere with “devices attached to the robot for the sole purpose of recording gameplay are subject to size and weight and cost restrictions, and may not have active wireless connection, but are otherwise legal”–or something along those lines. Right now, there’s nothing saying that you can even do that. (There’s also nothing saying you can’t… so let’s just get that out of the “list of things a nitpicking inspector can ding you on”.)
So where this comes into robot rules is first weight. If it puts you over, some thing musts be removed to allow it. Then wireless communication must be considered. There are competition rules about that so you will have to show it can be disabled or it must be expressly allowed by FIRST engineering to insure it does not interfere with FMS or add a secondary link. Then it must be inspected for safety as we do not want objects to become missiles during hard play on the field. The device should be mounted appropriately so that it will not dislodge and cause damage to other robots or to volunteers near the filed.
As @Peter_Johnson pointed out, this is legal, and I have seen teams do this before (though it’s been a few years). The ones I saw tried to get around the weight issue by stripping the laptop down to it’s core components (removing the screen and such).
We actually contemplated doing this ourselves. During our testing, we found that both traditional vision tape and April Tag processing works significantly better/faster with a dedicated graphics engine (as you would expect) so we looked into laptops and were able to find one with like a RTX 3060 on it for under the $600 price cap. The only downside was that it was like 5.5lbs so it would have been hard to justify unless we happened to end up with a very light robot somehow.
Personally I’m hoping new dedicated COTS solutions resolve the need for something as extreme as this, maybe even something that moves away from the RPi platform in favor of something with some more graphics horsepower.
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Does anyone have any experience with the LattePanda Delta 3 ?
It seems to have decent specs and not too exorbitant in price. It does have some excessive features like m.2 slots and an arduino. But hey, you could connect some LEDS or something to it lol.
It also has a 10 pin molex connector and is compatible with this battery.
A video that shows use of the battery (I know it’s a different board but it’s the same company and has the same pin layout)
It can also be powered by usb c or a jst connector. I’m not sure what all the legality of the battery in all those forms is but maybe someone who understands it better than I do could chime in. Speaking of power, it has an automatic boot feature if it detects power. Seems useful for use in FRC.
Batteries for COTS computing devices get into a weird territory because they must be “integral to
and part of” the device.
The device you linked appears to be a Dev board typically intended to be used with USB type power, even though it does have other power inputs. This would indicate to me that the battery is not integral.
One could, however, argue that any laptop has an integral battery. This may open up the Framework Laptop mainboard for use alongside its own battery. As Framework makes the laptop available in piecemeal parts that can be used for modular configurations, you can also potentially fit a very expensive computer into your robot compared to a whole standard laptop. No dedicated GPU, but a lot of CPU power and RAM that might be otherwise impossible.
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