Defcon 2009: Electronic Target desing & Testing

[theamk]

I have been working on the electornic target, and first tests look good.
It is based on a piezo sensor glued to piece of polycarbonate. Please see my write-up pages for more details:

Target design:
http://theamk.pbwiki.com/DC09TargetDesign

Test results:
http://theamk.pbwiki.com/DC09TargetTest1

Mikhail

[kallahar]

Re: Defcon 2009: Electronic Target desing & Testing

Wow, excellent work. Now can we get it down to a simple package that can be attached to a bot with the relays and stuff? I don't think we want to let the teams build their own circuit, since they could pretty easily have shorter delays, "accidentally" not process 20% of the hits, stuff like that.

Anyone have thoughts on this? We could also let each bot implement it on their own, and then have a testing phase where we shoot it and verify that the wheels stop.

Kallahar

[theamk]

Re: Defcon 2009: Electronic Target desing & Testing

I agree that teams should not provide the targets -- instead, there should be identical interchangable modules. We should also swap them between each car at competition, in case some team thinks their target is not working right.

At the same time, the design should be open, so if a team wants to build a target for their home testing, they can freely do so.

The current design, described on the webpage, is almost ready to be attached to the bot -- the only problem is that output is only 30mA. I think we dont need an actual relay, since the teams would have their own. Instead, we can put a transisor for a open-collector output that could sink up to 300 mA -- enough to drive any kind of relay.