I’ll be updating my blog over the next two weeks with progress on my AVC2011 entry. I’m re-entering Tobor from last year with a much better obstacle avoidance system (my weak link last year). Last years obstacle avoidance was rigged up and tested in a hotel room while I was out of town at a conference the week before the AVC. I’m hoping to do a better job this time around. I’ll be fusing the data from three IR range sensors and five ultrasonic sensors.
Since everyone else is doing it:
New semi-interesting video on my build blog: http://stkwans.blogspot.com/2011/04/thi … -work.html . This one is from the onboard camera. Once I get the image processing system squished down small enough to fit in an LPC2148, I can do obstacle avoidance with it :lol: . Actually, it’s just a passenger.
The whole reason I started with a helicopter is that I didn’t see any at the last AVC, and I actually thought it would be easier than a car. Obstacle avoidance would be easier, all the bonuses were for aircraft, and cars have been done to death.
@trialex: arg. you probably know how these things go. I’m still planning on bringing something (at the very least: myself) to the competition, but it means a very busy week. Flying’s harder than one would think. 
Well guys, I’m out of the competition for this year. I lost my HMC5843, and even then my code is just not up to snuff yet. I will continue to work on my vehicle till it is ready. If I cannot do 30 mph, I will be not be happy. Countdown to my AVC entry… aprox 370 days.
jessejay356:
Well guys, I’m out of the competition for this year. I lost my HMC5843, and even then my code is just not up to snuff yet. I will continue to work on my vehicle till it is ready. If I cannot do 30 mph, I will be not be happy. Countdown to my AVC entry… aprox 370 days.
You mean i crashed into the concrete 20+ times for nothing? I was trying to up the speeds to give you some competition. Your video scared me into thinking i needed full speed around the track to win. I didnt make it to full speed(25mph) over the weekend, but i got pretty close(about 20mph). I still dont have any obstical detection though.
I promise you, I did you one better. I crashed into a full size truck at 30+ mph, and snapped the nylon bolts holding my compass on. I didn’t notice it right away, and it got ran over. The board was there, but the module was gone! sigh I promise to be at 30 MPH next year, or I will be in the LAKE! I’m switching from a 2WD brushless vehicle to 4WD brushless. I have so much power, it will do wheelies like no other!
Hopefully, your speed will get you a win this year!
Jesse
Greenlight:
jessejay356:
Well guys, I’m out of the competition for this year. I lost my HMC5843, and even then my code is just not up to snuff yet. I will continue to work on my vehicle till it is ready. If I cannot do 30 mph, I will be not be happy. Countdown to my AVC entry… aprox 370 days.You mean i crashed into the concrete 20+ times for nothing? I was trying to up the speeds to give you some competition. Your video scared me into thinking i needed full speed around the track to win. I didnt make it to full speed(25mph) over the weekend, but i got pretty close(about 20mph). I still dont have any obstical detection though.
I was at SFE HQ Sunday afternoon and nothing was working. I even had some magic smoke coming from a Maxbotic sonar module for no apparent reason. I took some data and I’ll be fine tuning my obstacle avoidance and waypoints.
I couldn’t even make it around the building.
ScottH:
I was at SFE HQ Sunday afternoon and nothing was working. I even had some magic smoke coming from a Maxbotic sonar module for no apparent reason. I took some data and I’ll be fine tuning my obstacle avoidance and waypoints.I couldn’t even make it around the building.
I’m jealous of you Colorado guys. Being in Iowa, it’s a lot harder for me to test under competition conditions. It’s a 12 hour drive just to get to Sparkfun. And flying seems out of the question, all those wires etc probably won’t make me very popular at the airport!
Last year I took my AVC entry on a plane as carry on so I could work on it while I was at a conference in CA. The TSA was very interested and wanted to see the car after it went through the X-ray machine, but it only added about 10 minutes on each end of the trip. The TSA folks in Denver were pretty excited about the AVC. Not sure if any of them showed up, but I told them to come spectate.
Tell the TSA you’ve got a robot and give them the nickel tour. It’s legal to fly with a robot, so do it! Pack the tools, and hand carry the precious, fragile bot!
-Scott
jessejay356:
I’m jealous of you Colorado guys. Being in Iowa, it’s a lot harder for me to test under competition conditions. It’s a 12 hour drive just to get to Sparkfun. And flying seems out of the question, all those wires etc probably won’t make me very popular at the airport!
I’m having some rough times myself. Once again my code started hanging for no apparent reason… so that was about 4 hours lost … instead of working on actual functionality.
I’ve not tested at SFE yet. I guess I will ‘test’ on race day 
I have some new hypotheses explaining why my compass and AHRS (gyro+accel) are sucking so badly. If I’m right… I probably can’t do anything about it anyway because there’s no time.
Miraculously the CMUcam1-based vision system that I threw together in a few fast-paced hours seems to work fairly well.
Anti-miraculously, after going through all the trouble to put it together (fabbing an aluminum mount and a custom Arduino-based Serial-to-I2C PCB, writing software and everything), whenever the boards are on, my GPS satellite signals drop by about 30-40db. From tracking 7-9 sats in the basement to tracking 2 or 3. Poorly. I think the two boards are spitting out a ton of RF interference.
So I guess it is back to sonar. Because my IR sensors just don’t seem to work reliably.
Well, hey, at least the robot’s body is painted.
I am hoping for a great deal of luck at this point.
I was at SFE last night and somebody told me that there were two ground teams that came and dominated the course with no problem. My best run was (still not around the building without help) achieved when I turned all the obstacle avoidance off. Noisy sensors are making the car doge phantoms.
Friday is my all day hack and fix session.
Ugh. Good luck everyone.
Last few nights were late ones… the nav is working better… I keep writing bugs into my code. Need to stop doing that No obstacle avoidance implemented. Just too many issues to wade through.
I did a test run at a nearby parking lot… it wasn’t great, but … gotta run what ya brung, right? So hoping to at least make it around the first corner… anything else is a bonus. Maybe will try a couple tweaks tomorrow. We’ll see.
Focused on packing tools etc tonight. No more coding or tinkering. I’ve pretty much done all I can. Can barely keep my eyes open and I need to be awake for the hour drive up north…
Good luck to everyone, and looking forward to it!
let me say congrats to everyone that participated! I didn’t make it out this year, but I watched the first heat on video so I was there in spirit!. But I will be there next year and hope to give tobor and the other great teams a challenger!
I compiled my video and photos into a quick movie. Check out the mass start, it’s pretty cool!
Nice! You got my blue blaze car crash in there too.ScottH:
I compiled my video and photos into a quick movie. Check out the mass start, it’s pretty cool!
We had really bad luck that day.
Run 1 we forgot to turn the power on to a board that runs the gyros so we crashed into the curb.
Run 2 we got tangled up with another car. It bent our steering a bit.
Run 3 we were driving near the curb and the wet leaves balled up under the car and it got stuck.
Free-for-all we crashed into another car as seen in scotts video. but we flipped it back over and it completed the race. I think it was the first to cross the finish line on the free-for-all.