FRC488 Camera Assisted Scoring Tests

We had a productive weekend and now have a competition-ready, if not competition-perfect, practice robot. Software tuning and sensor testing has now begun in earnest and we’re really happy with the way things are shaping up. The mechanical systems are getting a good work out and we’re ready to make improvements as we finish up the competition robot this week.

We’ll have more pictures and videos soon – the robot is a bit of a mess yet – but we wanted to share some cool video of our camera-assisted scoring tests.

The first video is brief and shows one of the first tests of the system:

The second shows a bit more of the robot in action as potential drivers experiment with the robot, help tune the arm PID system and score some tubes:

The camera-assisted scoring works in steps, using on board sensors to position the robot in front of a column of scoring pegs.

First, using the gyro, it rotates the robot so that it is in its starting orientation relative to the field – facing the pegs. After rotating to that orientation, it locks out the ability to rotate the robot further while scoring-assist is enabled.

Next, it uses the camera to locate a column of scoring pegs. In this demonstration, the yellow part bin is standing in for the retroreflective tape. The robot strafes until the target is centered in its field of vision. Once the target is centered, strafe is disabled.

The only degree of control that remains at this point is forward/backward motion. The driver and operator can now easily select the height of the scoring peg they’re aiming for an approach to score a tube. Though rotation and strafing are now locked, the robot will always try to maintain its orientation and heading, so it will resist and correct for being knocked off course by other robots.

Cool videos.

Can you take a second and either post a pic or explain how your tube gripper works? It’s tough to tell via the video on my phone, but the red triangle does a crazy dance as its picked up and I was curious how your gripper functions.

-Brando

I don’t think I have any good pictures of the gripper yet and it’ll be really hard to see on video – especially on a phone. It’s pretty straight-forward, though. We’ve got a piece of spring steel wrapped around an ~8" disc that is driven directly by a window motor. As it’s extended out, it wraps around the tube from below. The triangle’s crazy motion was it settling into place inside the wire loop.

Quite impressive motion control!

The face on your robot reminds me of the Phantom Menace Droids.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm4044199680/ch0064257

Thanks :slight_smile:

The similarity in appearance was not lost upon us. The pool noodles were there to protect the ceiling of the building and probably won’t be on the competition robot, unfortunately. :slight_smile: