What do you use controller rumble for?

Technical Control System
1

WPILib supports rumble in controllers. As a programmer, I find the need to use as many features as possible while making the controls intuitive. Has anyone actually used the controller rumble for something such as a notifier for time running out or something similar.

Do you have any ideas for what to use it for?

2

I’ve always found rumble more distracting than helpful. Throw something on the dashboard and trust your drive coach, in my opinion.

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3

Rumble is a useful feature to provide feedback to the operator. Things like notifying your operator to close your intake once you’ve detected that an object is in it, telling your operator that your elevator is at it’s min/max limits so that they know they can’t move it further down/up, telling your operator that you can’t shoot because your vision processing can’t detect the goal are a few things that I can think of off the top of my head.

4

We have always used it as a way to show a process is running. I.e in 2016 we used it to let drivers know that the auto targeting process was still running so that we did not attempt to hit the shooting button prematurely.

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In the 2018 season, we notified drivers when (code can be found here)

  1. Match time was between 29.1 and 30s (endgame notification)
  2. Limiting overrides
    a. Driver was able to override a speed ramping set by lift height (very useful for the few times he had to, never accidentally set the limit without knowing)
    b. Operator was able to override limit switches on elevator (incase of failure we could still operate)
  3. Intake on both (driver knew when operator was intaking so if for some reason operator wasn’t paying attention, driver knew before attempting to put a cube through the intake if it was running).
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6

In 2018, we had an arm with a claw on it to deliver cubes. When the arm was horizontal and the claw was extended, the assembly extended beyond the maximum allowed robot space. To raise or lower the arm, you had to “tuck” the claw to keep it inside the legal space. If the operator tried to raise or lower the arm when the claw was not tucked, the software did not allow the operation, and the rumble turned on to alert the operator that the software wasn’t allowing him to move.

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7

I like the rumble for intake active idea… Might use that myself this year :slight_smile:

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