Start lights images

Failing to start is my biggest fear. Once the robot starts to move everything gets more relaxed!

[Edit: Look for the file called start_line.zip at the bottom of this posting. Lots of images.]

To help with other teams having trouble at the lights I have collected some images together from Pico HulkenBorg's entries last season and some of this season. This might help teams to test their methods against different lighting conditions and from different lanes. Of course nothing beats testing on the track.

The images were captured using openCV, set up as per the standard code but at 10fps, 160x120 px.

A small tip for if you're testing new start light code. You can run multiple start light detection scripts at the same time! I use two methods, one of them being a copy of the house code sequence and the other being code of my own. Make sure your variables have different names. You only need one of them to tell the robot when to start moving, just remember to log which one of them gives you the start signal first.

I once tried using a timer to start the robot automatically in case of missing the lights. It didn't work. The time waiting between challenge/testing rounds can be longer than the length of the round itself, so there isn't a realistic time to count up to that you can guarantee that if you miss the lights that you'll still complete any laps.

I hope this helps people to start their races. Once the robots start moving you're on your own...

Jon (robot psychologist of Pico HulkenBorg)