Hi guys, my coach has been wanting me to use the GPS for an autonomous skills run. However I’m not sure what it actually offers in terms of improving my skills run.
The GPS sensor seems cool, but if I can make it as far I have so far into my skills runs(160 auton skills and improving) should I take the time to add the GPS sensor into it?
it really just depends on how you use it
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I haven’t used GPS before, but my coach says that he will probably be letting me trial the GPS sensor very soon as one of the first teams in my program to do so. I probably won’t have results in for a few weeks, but I will probably post on the forums with my GPS adventures once I am done.
A 160 programming skills is already a very impressive score, and depending on how long it took you to code it and how reliable it is, you might just want to stick with what you already do.
The first question is: how do you move your robot around? I figure you probably use some sort of movement algorithm like PID. Do you use other sensors, like the inertial sensor? Some very impressive things can be done with just those two things, as demonstrated by 29760C: 301 Point Programming Skills | Vex Tipping Point 29760C - YouTube
If you’re not familiar with the way GPS functions, it uses code strips on the field, almost like a weird form of QR code, to “read” the robot’s location. This means that if your sensor gets obstructed, you might not be able to read the strip anymore. Depending on your robot’s design, this could be a non-issue, or it could happen very often. If you’ve ever considered adding odometry to your code through tracking wheels on your robot, it’s almost like that. Except, you don’t need fancy geometric algorithms: the sensor does everything for you. I don’t know how reliable it is and I won’t know until the sensor gets in and we have it on a robot. But, keep these things in mind:
- Does your robot already perform well in autonomous without GPS?
- Do you, personally, think GPS could improve your autonomous performance?
- Can you accommodate your robot design to place a GPS sensor at the correct height and correct position, without chance of blockage?
- Do you feel like you have time to re-program your programming skills routines to use the GPS sensor?
Hopefully this should help you out. If you need any more help, let me know and I will be glad to assist!
– Michael, 8349P
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Happy cake day @DaddyCoke ! Go eat some cake!
The gps offers consistently and accuracy even if you hit something and get knocked off course. It is very hard to use and get it accurate tho. It helped my team a lot! The only drawback is that sometimes it’s not set up correctly and it can be droopy
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I was able to learn how to use the PID algorithm this year and have only been using it for are drivetrain. Only very recently did I add the inertial sensor onto our robot, so I haven’t use the inertial sensor a whole lot quite yet. However, the inertial sensor has been having some conflict with the drive PID and I’m currently fixing the issue.
Our robot works pretty good without the GPS, however my personal opinion of the GPS is that its likely a little late into the season for me to experiment with it and I have no idea where we would place the Sensor on the robot.
Thank you, this has helped me a lot.
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Thank you 
The GPS sensor seems really cool I’ll probably end up messing around with it in the next season.
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