I had a question about detecting colors that’s different from the other posts. We are a rookie VEX team wanting to be able to single out red from blue on a dark grey surface. Being a rookie team we’re on a shoestring budget and can’t afford to buy a bunch of stuff. While the obvious solution is to employ a different strategy, the whole point of this year is building skills. While I recognize teams don’t want to share strategy, I’m hoping someone is willing to share some technical info about VEX parts.
Can the line follower kit be used as a more sophisticated (and cheaper) color detector? I can’t tell from the description what technology it uses, but it comes with three sensors.
If the answer above is NO. If a team wanted to find a particular colour with good accuracy (a base red or blue colour), how many of the VEX light sensors would be needed.
The line following sensor might be able to differentiate between red and blue. It all depends on how much light is reflecting off the ring. A red ring will probably reflect more light than a blue ring would. The problem becomes the fact that there will be a lot of variation in light on the field. Robots will each cast their own shadows and shadows from drivers will also be on the field. When you look at the rings and mating in gray scale I doubt you will be able to effectively determine the difference in color on a regular basis.
The problem with the Line Tracking Kit is that it must be very close to the surface that is being “sensed”. Also the “ambient light” (Light in the Room) will over whelm the sensors of the Line Tracking Kit, since the Line Tracking Kit has its own Infrared Transmitter.
I have already told my team that I can see no immediate use for the Line Tracking Kit…
i would think the the line following kit is kind of useless in FTC, i think the light sensor is useless to because if you try and detect blue and red rings you could pick up the lines for the quadrants, also there are many variations of light around the field, espicially when people take pics with the flash on