I was thinking about using sensors on the robot to tell me when i am in the right position (near a goal) to score successfully because i can imaging that especially on raised fields it will be difficult to line up nicely on a goal that is on the far side of the field or blocker from your view by the ladder. It would be sick if the new controller had a rumble but hey it is already a million times better that the old one so i can’t really complain.
I was thinking about hooking up a bunch of LEDs and having them light up when i am in scoring position but i have heard that they are not very bright and they could also be blocked by the ladder.
Has anybody ever brought a laptop to the driver station as a way to get feedback from the robot using VEXnet. Would this even work if you were hooked up to the field?
If you have any other ideas about getting some sort of feedback from the bot feel free to share them
Alternate ideas: like most brainstorms, many are impractical or bad.
Laptop, you already mentioned, seems reasonable, check on legality though.
The new controller has brass screwsockets on top edge.
I’ve heard these are for an LCD screen attachment, for ‘drive by Camera’.
This would be a good question to ask in the Official Answers Tech forum.
In practice difficult = (decide what to look at ? robot : screen);
LEDs, you have already mentioned, a decorative reflective hood may help visibility issues
‘spare’ servo to wave a flag on robot for feedback. Can also spin a color wheel or pointer to a specific value to indicate a number of different feedbacks.
existing motors/servos: do arm bob or other misc movement for indicator.
Cyborg-aid, rather than give feedback, go ahead and do something automatically when in the right position. (not for use with weapon systems)
Sound feedback from decorative speaker: may be illegally annoying, and unnerving to opponents; “beep” ‘oh no, they are getting another point!’ Use the misquito ringtone noise above the hearing range of referees to avoid annoying them.
Sound feedback from ‘spare servo’ hitting a vex metal gong. Should be both legal AND annoying. A good way to attract the defense robot to yours, so your alliance partner can proceed in peace. Vex Marimba anyone?
Other feedback channel technologies (decorative lights, sounds, IR, wireless webcam, zigbee, wireless anything else) not facilitated by Vex are likely illegal.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were an as yet undocumented rumble feedback. You could disassembly your controller to check, and/or browse around in the robotC lib files.
There are already Vexnet lights that blink the same on the robot and on the controller. If you can find any programming to modulate that pattern, you could use that, but effective response time is likely slower than desired.
I was really hoping to avoid using any motors because i am already using my 10 for more productive things. It would be awesome if there was a way to get the rumble affect with the controller even it if was an LED on the controller. And as for choosing which to watch the robot or the controller i DO have a coach and despite being a team of one i could get a “second driver” specifically to watch that LED if i REALLY wanted to.
I will have to check about the legality of adding a laptop into the mix.
The vex LCD is really useful for getting feedback from the robot.
Also, the backlight on it is actually quite bright, and can be seen even on a well lit field (it can be turned on and off by software).
Hmm interesting. It seems pretty similar to the LED solution. There are many other ways to use it which is great but it is also considerably more expensive than a few LED’s.
Advantage of the LCD is that it’s a much bigger area, thus making it easier to see. If a laptop isn’t legal, you could use binoculars to read the LCD text ^.^
Here’s a thought - When the robot detects that it is scoring position, let it automatically score - Or automatically remove rings - Why insist on getting a sloppy human driver involved when the machine can do all the work for you with precise, repeatable motions?
You (the ugly bag of mostly water) can just get the shiny machine into roughly the right tactical spot; and then kick it into auto-pilot mode so that it can do the hard work while you spend your valuable time and scarce brainpower looking around the field and trying plot your next strategic move (and by that I mean winking at someone of the opposite sex).
This is particularly advantageous when you’re scoring on the off field goals, since you should be right against a wall. Imagine if you bump a wall while holding a trigger, you could just run the routine to position the arm and fire, automatically stopping if you let go of the autotrigger? I love this idea…
The laptop to the field idea will not likely be allowed.
Here’s a batter idea, use sensors that allow you to get close to a stack of tubes then have the robot execute a subroutine that does the rest, no feedback required.
254A did this in Elevation when they wanted to pull cubes from the autoloader’s.
I have already been planning on having TONS of autonomous subroutines running including picking up tubes and getting everything into the correct position to score (except for driving in) the reason that i do not want to have the robot score completely by itself is because there are a number of decisions to be made that i feel like i need to make on a case by case basis. How Many to score being a major one of those decisions. I understand that a functioning autonomous subroutine is always going to be better than throwing a sloppy human driver behind the controls but when it comes down making decisions i trust myself a bit more. I want to automate everything about scoring (lining up getting the arm to the right height) but i want to be the one on the button to release the tubes.
With so many buttons on the new joysticks, perhaps you could have one of them (either left-hand or right-hand set of buttons) be for determining how many tubes to release. The rollers will run for autonomously for a subroutine for releasing that many number of tubes – hybridization of autonomy and decision making?
Subroutines can also be very simple. For elevation, we used feedback and a routine to rise our lifter arm for the different heights. 1 click of a button is up one goal size, 2 clicks for the 2nd size, etc… complicated combinations of buttons could be hard to handle unless you have a driver specially trained with arcade fighting games. Simplicity is better.
That is true… It just means you actually have to write real code… Get the robot to think for itself, taking input, and turning it into actions… Just like the real world…
