As the new FIRST season fast approaches we are trying to be proactive on some things. One problem that has always come up is Sensor applications. The use of sensors and the ability to interpret the data is getting increasingly important in FIRST. Our Sensor mounting has been lacking at best. We are looking for ideas,pictures,drawings, etc…
The use of String Pots, LVDT’s,accelerometers,digital compasses come to mind among others. We hope that as we all learn more about this subject the possibility’s will be endless
In the past we have used wheels on our Pots to give us a position, but often they are bumped and we have to recalibrate their position.
For our position on the field we have used Banner sensors,mechanical and optical encoders and just dead reckoning. We are thinking about using sensors that read the teeth on gears.
We hope this thread will help others with Data acquisition questions and make everyone’s autonomous modes that much better. We hope we didn’t miss a previous thread on this subject but we hope if we did we can pull all the info into one place.
Thanks for any help. We hope to see everyone very soon. Team RUSH 27 Michigan
I feel your pain. We have had some success at getting the main controls board integrated into the robot. However, sensor mounting and placement always seems to be an afterthought. Trying to get it elevated to the beginning of the design cycle continues to be a (seemingly unattainable) goal for us.
I thought I’d try and revive an old thread, because I have been contemplating the mounts of the sensors on our arm. Does anyone have any pictures of this year’s or previos year’s sensor mounts? More specifically, potentiometer mounts.
Out of the 42 sensors that we have to mount, only one has good placement. and is already in there. The others… well… dare I say, have no home. These little devils can’t just go anywhere either. they have to be well protected and placed right where you need them.
Hope all you other teams out there have a better time fitting sensors into your frame, because we didn’t.
