I’ve been thinking about various ways that information could be better displayed to drivers. I’ve seen some teams with displays mounted arms but I think glasses might be easier to read. So would it be possible/legal to use glasses with displays in them? What other high tech gadgets can you think that can help?
Some possible examples:
You have to plug them in after auto ends which is very inconvenient. Legal yes, but having to waste time after auto ends loses any advantage they would grant.
ftcFIRST Tech Challenge-frcFIRST Robotics Competition-safety-manual (1).pdf (981.6 KB)
Per the 2024 safety manual
4.1.2 Safety Glasses and Protective Eyewear Safety glasses and protective eyewear are designed to provide a shield around the entire eye to protect against hazards such as splashes of liquids, burns from steam, compressed air, and flying wood or metal debris. To prevent injury, all individuals in the pit area, the practice field area and the arena must wear safety glasses or protective eyewear that is ANSI-approved, UL Listed, CE EN166-rated, AS/NZS-certified or CSAControl System Advisor-rated. Reflective lenses are prohibited; your eyes must be clearly visible to others. Accommodations will be made for participants who require tinted safety glasses. The use of anything other than ANSI-approved, UL Listed, CE EN166-rated, AS/NZS-certified, or CSAControl System Advisorrated eye protection is prohibited.
If you can follow those rules in section 4 (PPE) and it is an actual approved pair of safety glasses it may pass the safety legality. As others have stated this cannot be worn/active during Auton and you’llLimelight, an integrated vision coprocessor have to make sure it’s unplugged and not under control of any member of drive team til teleop.
My other note is like all drive stations and control equipment. Keep it simple so you can move it in and out between matches quickly and not hold up the next team.
Three rules you have to follow for HUDs, particularly glasses-mounted ones.
Oh, right: and the driver does need to be wearing safety glasses at all times during the match. Including while the HUD glasses are on the Driver Station console in Auto.
I will say that this has occasionally been done before, but if you’re going to have it mounted on the glasses you’ve got an uphill climb.
Do you have any specific examples where you’ve seen them? I’d like to see how they were implemented
I wear glasses.
Unless the HUD is displayed reasonably far from the eye, the distance difference between end-of-field vs HUD is bound to induce discomfort at the very least. Not to mention, distracting.
You want to focus on your robot, others’ robots, and the field. These objects are all very far from you. If the HUD is up in your eye, you’re gonna have a hard time staying focused far-field having to jump around for information.
@Peter_Johnson, got any pictures of the '06 HUD?
The only one I’ve seen for sure was back in 2006 (or so). 294’s driver (or operator) had a red, a yellow, and a green LED attached to the side of their safety glasses. I seem to recall them putting the clip onto the glasses right after auto. And they used it primarily to indicate targeting/ready-to-fire status, nothing else fancy.
Similarly, 1640 did it in 2013 and got a Creativity Award for it. A picture and a short description of how it worked can be found on their wiki.
A bit before my time; I remember seeing it, but I don’t have a photo. @AdamHeard might? Super simple implementation though. The LEDs were wired to the control board through a headphone jack. While they clipped onto the safety glasses (using a standard binder clip), I’m pretty sure that they were clipped on before auto, just unplugged, and the driver plugged it into the headphone jack when stepping forward after auto.
There was a Hololens trial in 2017; FIRST wasn’t willing to allow them to be used in eliminations (bent the existing rules for quals matches) but the tech was still pretty meh at the time. Bad FOV is the main issue, I want simple indicators way near the edge of my vision not blocking the view of the robot.
423 won an Innovation in Control award in 2012 for their HUD constructed out of a piece of teleprompter glass and a laptop screen. It did work, but not sure how useful it actually ended up being.
See I’ve always wondered about a Virtual Reality headset. I think in the past the rule was that it obstructed vision as well as what was previously stated.
I doubt the rules would change now that Mixed Reality passthru are a thing. But man would that be neat
A similar COTS item to Zack’s monocle that I think could be made to follow all rules is the Vufine VUF-110 Wearable Display
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MZ89QXF
You might be on to something with that. HDMI input only, magnetic attachment to glasses.
To tack on…
The engineering challenge here is to make sure that the driver has additional information without taking their attention far from the robot. Definitely a good goal. But, of course, glasses aren’t the only way to do this
Other options might include …
LEDs on the robot itself that change color or pattern to indicate things.
A monitor mounted at or near eye level
A transparent piece of plastic mounted at an angle to reflect lights or a display, which the driver looks through to see the robot.
Little lights mounted on normal safety glasses in peripheral vision
Anyway. Restarting a lot of what was said. And the Google glass style solution is really cool … but keep in mind it’s not the only answer
Yeah, I’ve really wanted to make RPi wearable computer with one. There is a design for integrating a Pi Zero W and battery into a Wii nun chuck that I was thinking could work using an on-screen keyboard assuming the screen can display a full on-screen keyboard clearly enough, Maybe even implement some kind of Swipe keying like I use on my phone or something. Obviously would require some significant UI setup to work on the small format screen, but I think it would be a really cool functional accessory to a cyberpunk costume/cosplay.
Could also ofc use my phone or something with it too, just need an arduino Pro Micro, Pi Pico, or similar instead of a full pi to adapt the nun chuck into a USB Mouse.
