Contestants?

[Variable X]

Re: Contestants?

Ya, I'll probably be there as early as possible as well with the basic tools (soldering iron, bubble level, screw drivers of various sizes, tape, etc etc). We're driving out tomorrow (thursday) morning and should get there about mid afternoon. So if you're in vegas tomorrow and wanna meet up just e-mail me (dryawgmoth@gmail.com)

EDIT: or wait ... you better not use the network there ..... so um ... I'll just PM you my phone number.

[cfinger]

Re: Contestants?

I'll be submitting a bot this year as well. Pretty much the same code as last year (with a few performance tweaks) but completely new hardware and I'll be running it off of my new Laptop instead of my big cluncky old PC like last year ^_^.

I can't wait to see everyone's robots. I've been lurking around youtube and It looks like there's going to be some awesome competition this year. It's amazing how we can come up with so many successful, yet very different, bots for the same challenge.

Good Luck everyone ^_^ (especially those of you who need to fly with your bots to the con ... you're going to need it with airport security ... My friends and I will be driving out and we'll bring all of our tools that we can. So if you need to borrow some tools to re-assemble your bot after shipping it just ask ^_^)

-Var X

Hey Var X, I might take you up on those tools... I'll be flying out there from Wisconsin... I'm also coming by myself so some help would be much appreciated... Gonna be there on friday to practice? I should be there relatively early.

[Variable X]

Re: Contestants?

I'll be submitting a bot this year as well. Pretty much the same code as last year (with a few performance tweaks) but completely new hardware and I'll be running it off of my new Laptop instead of my big cluncky old PC like last year ^_^.

I can't wait to see everyone's robots. I've been lurking around youtube and It looks like there's going to be some awesome competition this year. It's amazing how we can come up with so many successful, yet very different, bots for the same challenge.

Good Luck everyone ^_^ (especially those of you who need to fly with your bots to the con ... you're going to need it with airport security ... My friends and I will be driving out and we'll bring all of our tools that we can. So if you need to borrow some tools to re-assemble your bot after shipping it just ask ^_^)

-Var X

[kallahar]

Re: Contestants?

yeah, looks like you can do per-pixel operations on version 3, so it looks like it does have the capabilities for this contest.

I'd love to see one!

Kallahar

[Tacitus]

Re: Contestants?

Looking at the CMUcam docs it seems like an embedded solution on the CMUcam with not much more hardware would be reasonable to implement....

[LosT]

Re: Contestants?

CMU cam 3 is vastly superior to the earler CMU and CMU2 cams-

I keep waiting to see a fully embedded solution to this- the raw processing power requirement can easily be met by many of the newer micros, AVR, Propeller, PIC, etc....

LosT

[kallahar]

Re: Contestants?

Yes, multiple guns are allowed. Just remember that it increases your complexity a lot.

This doesn't help the embedded guys, but I've had really good luck using a normal USB webcam as my image capture. It gives just good enough quality, at 10' the smallest targets are still only about 4 pixels across at 320x240...

Kallahar

[Carbon Ring]

Re: Contestants?

I'll be there but this is my first attempt at a contest like this. I'm confident I can work through the robotics end but the vision processing and associated coding is daunting to say the least.

I'm in the same boat. Have you looked at the CMUcam and/or the AVRcam? They both offer firmware that does color blob detection at 30 fps (or so) and interface to a micro or laptop via a serial port. The CMUcam only gives back one blob that covers all pixels in the user-specified range, but the AVRcam can return up to 8 individual blobs.

There are other ways to solve the problem, especially if you want to use a laptop. See the thread that references opencv.

Is there a limit to how many guns we can use at the same time? This is not a shotgun approach, just curious if we have to stick with only one gun. Thanks.

I found it very interesting to read last year's results. Multiple guns are an option.

Carbon Ring

[opiesan]

Re: Contestants?

I'll be there but this is my first attempt at a contest like this. I'm confident I can work through the robotics end but the vision processing and associated coding is daunting to say the least. Is there a limit to how many guns we can use at the same time? This is not a shotgun approach, just curious if we have to stick with only one gun. Thanks.

[M1DDL3BR0W]

Re: Contestants?

I'll be there this year too.

[Carbon Ring]

Re: Contestants?

This looks like a great contest. I'm thinking it can be done with an AVRCam (same sensor as the CMUCam, but with open source firmware) and an Atmel micro.

In looking up the CMUcam URL, I just noticed that there's now a CMUcam3 that is also open source and programmable. I guess I need to check that out as well...

I'm hoping to get something working for the competition.

Carbon Ring

[nak]

Re: Contestants?

There should be at least one team from DCG602

[lowtec]

Re: Contestants?

I'm just thinking about getting started.. I didn't enter last year but saw some of the teams testing their bots. Was anyone able to control their bot without a laptop or computer? ie .. use just an embedded system?

[wsbpress]

Re: Contestants?

I am pretty sure that my team is going to enter again this year.

[lowtec]

So, uh.. who's going to enter the competition this year?