We are looking at redesigning our pit and we thought it would be cool to have a large touchscreen kiosk/monitor that we could use for pit presentations and to show off robot designs.
I am envisioning people being able to swipe through photos/slides and also being able to view and revolve CAD renderings.
Does anyone have any suggestions for this type of application?
If anyone on your team is inclined to web development, it could be very easy to throw together a super simple website (html/css/js so it can be hosted on github) using A-Frame.
A-Frame allows you to import obj files which Solidworks part files can be converted to. Photo navigation can be done through web based addons and all your files can be stored locally and displayed just by navigating to the folder.
If enough teams are interested I might setup a prototype because it seems really cool and really simple.
You could do just simple WebGL too…
Good big touch screens can get pretty far up there in price, if you’re going bigger than say 24". If you really have money burning a hole in your pocket you could look at a Microsoft Surface Hub.
In addition, consumer grade touchscreens are mostly soft-touch, and will be damaged the first time someone starts tapping with a pen or pencil. And they will - believe me.
This sounds interesting. We haven’t done a lot of web development but I am definitely interested and will look more into it. Could the A-Frame import Inventor models?
We also wouldn’t be opposed to using a flat screen TV as a large display. That Surface Hub looks awesome but we don’t have that kind of money to burn!
Why not use a tablet?
While it sounds like an interesting pit attraction, based on replies, I have to ask. Have rules changed regarding running Wi-Fi connections at events.
Given the concern with current robot connectivity setup, is a competing signal something that should be encouraged?
Unless I missed something in the thread, there’s nothing here about running your own wireless network. You can use an existing (venue/school provided, for example) wireless network at the event, you just can’t set up your own access point.
The rules have not changed, and likely won’t for quite some time.
What I’m hearing is that they’d pre-load the monitor with “stuff” and display it. No Wi-Fi connection needed. This is actually pretty normal to do, just not necessarily with a touch screen.
254 has had something basically exactly like you want for a few years now:
http://i.imgur.com/dE3A8mJl.jpg
It just seems to look like an especially large touch screen monitor, but I’m not an expert on such a thing. You might be able to contact them to get more information about the parts and software they used for it.
Reading up a bit on their blog, they don’t have many concrete details, but they did say they used a 42" touch screen display for it, which I could find several different versions of here. None of them were under $1500 though, so it’s a pretty big chunk of change there then.
Team 1540 has been doing this for the last three years. It’s great for our spokespeople to be able to flip quickly to pictures/videos of various features of the robot or examples of our community engineering and outreach. Since it has to run locally we just use Powerpoint’s hotspot and animation features to manage it all. No need for web development unless you find that fun.
Touch screen monitors come down in price quite a bit. We use a 24". You can get them for under $300 now. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KEEMS1U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_l4VNzbV4NAGKV
Thanks for the responses. We do not want to use wifi for this. We will just load the display and allow it to run on the machine. We will look more into the 254 application and flatscreen tv methods.
I am used to seeing the computer monitors at competitions with videos and slideshows. I can see having a large display as beneficial for giving presentations in the pit to judges, etc. Having a large display will also introduce new problems such as cleaning and protecting it.
If anyone has any other ideas on the touch screen solution let us know. I think it would be awesome to be able to zoom in and revolve around robot components from CAD renderings. We’ll keep digging for solutions and hopefully share them as we figure it out.
I’ve never done this before for robotics so I’m not sure what problems might arise, but have you considered having a small touchscreen tablet with HDMI out for the presenter and have it hooked up to a large non-touchscreen display in the pit. This way the presenter gets all of the advantages of a touchscreen display without needing to buy expensive large touchscreen displays and worrying about it getting damaged in the pit.
That’s a great idea! We will look into that as well.
For the CAD aspect of this, perhaps you could pre load a grabcad page each morning of the models you wish to view. It may not be as elegant as a custom written application. But it would get the job done.
When we were at the LA Gadget Expo in 2015, a company was demonstrating their Touchjet products. These are basically projectors with sensors that turn any surface into a touch screen. I know they have educational pricing so I’d look in to that.
Their newest product just uses a tv and costs just $299.99 pre education discount.
That is pretty cool! Thanks for sharing.
No problem. I have a teacher who uses very similar tech and loves it. It has not failed in its 5 years. I’m not sure if it’s the same brand but it works very similarly.
After looking more into the touchjet solutions I learned that in order for them to work they must be hooked up to wifi at all times. This won’t work based on the current wifi restrictions at competitions.
Otherwise this would have been a great solution.