Another late night in the lab
0645, Professor Tu's lab at NKFUST
Well, the second all-nighter of FIRA 2011 has officially been pulled. Derek, Chi Tai, and I spent the entire night working on the marathon code. And it looks pretty good. Darwin can move at a pretty decent clip. And the vision system we put together works pretty well; he follows the line accurately, cutting corners wherever possible to shorten the path. I had him walking around for about 4-5 minutes on the battery and he was still stable, even after the battery was down to about 11.2V (it's normally 12.5). I'm actually feeling slightly optimistic about this last event. Which of course starts in... an hour and 45 minutes. That should give us just enough time to pack everything up in the lab, head back over to the main hall, recalibrate the camera, and get started. I really hope we can walk the entire 80m. That would be pretty awesome. But failing that, simply finishing somewhere in the top-5 I think would be noce. I'm not expecting to place that highly, but I think our walking speed is better than most of the other robots. And our vision system seems robust. Between the two I think we're in with a chance.
I was informed last night (when it was still yesterday) that we're actually leaving Kaohsiung today, after the closing ceremonies for FIRA, and heading to Taipei. This has of course added slightly to the stress, since I need to find time to pack everything up in the dorm. I don't know if I want to try to cram my thin little bamboo mattress into my suitcase or not. I sincerely hope it won't be required again in Taipei, but I don't want to be out another $30 CAD if it is. And it should fold up flat enough to fit in my luggage. The blanket and pillow may be more difficult to pack however.
While we're in Taipei we will be participating in another robotics competition, featuring the exact same events as FIRA. So I've still got a chance to fix up the basketball code and get better than 1/5. Yay! But at the same time I was kind of hoping we were done with the competitions and could have a little bit of free time. This whole week has been pretty intense. Maybe we'll get a day or two off to do some touristy stuff.
I would post this right away, but the internet connection in the lab has timed out, and Professor Tu's students aren't here anymore, so they can't sign in for the rest of us. Oh well. Maybe I'll take a short nap. Chi Tai is passed out on the floor (and has been for the last few hours), and Derek went back to the dorm about half an hour ago. So I'm the only one of the three of us who's actually still awake right now. Yay?
Anyway, I should probably start packing everything up so we've got lots of time to calibrate the camera and do some practice laps on various sections of the track.
Well, the second all-nighter of FIRA 2011 has officially been pulled. Derek, Chi Tai, and I spent the entire night working on the marathon code. And it looks pretty good. Darwin can move at a pretty decent clip. And the vision system we put together works pretty well; he follows the line accurately, cutting corners wherever possible to shorten the path. I had him walking around for about 4-5 minutes on the battery and he was still stable, even after the battery was down to about 11.2V (it's normally 12.5). I'm actually feeling slightly optimistic about this last event. Which of course starts in... an hour and 45 minutes. That should give us just enough time to pack everything up in the lab, head back over to the main hall, recalibrate the camera, and get started. I really hope we can walk the entire 80m. That would be pretty awesome. But failing that, simply finishing somewhere in the top-5 I think would be noce. I'm not expecting to place that highly, but I think our walking speed is better than most of the other robots. And our vision system seems robust. Between the two I think we're in with a chance.
I was informed last night (when it was still yesterday) that we're actually leaving Kaohsiung today, after the closing ceremonies for FIRA, and heading to Taipei. This has of course added slightly to the stress, since I need to find time to pack everything up in the dorm. I don't know if I want to try to cram my thin little bamboo mattress into my suitcase or not. I sincerely hope it won't be required again in Taipei, but I don't want to be out another $30 CAD if it is. And it should fold up flat enough to fit in my luggage. The blanket and pillow may be more difficult to pack however.
While we're in Taipei we will be participating in another robotics competition, featuring the exact same events as FIRA. So I've still got a chance to fix up the basketball code and get better than 1/5. Yay! But at the same time I was kind of hoping we were done with the competitions and could have a little bit of free time. This whole week has been pretty intense. Maybe we'll get a day or two off to do some touristy stuff.
I would post this right away, but the internet connection in the lab has timed out, and Professor Tu's students aren't here anymore, so they can't sign in for the rest of us. Oh well. Maybe I'll take a short nap. Chi Tai is passed out on the floor (and has been for the last few hours), and Derek went back to the dorm about half an hour ago. So I'm the only one of the three of us who's actually still awake right now. Yay?
Anyway, I should probably start packing everything up so we've got lots of time to calibrate the camera and do some practice laps on various sections of the track.