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In a number of my articles I have mentioned that you must enable “More Sensors” and use the Raw Red value to differentiate between white and silver. This is because the generic Reflected Light reading does not provide values that can safely tell the difference between white and silver.
This article explains how to enable “More Sensors” in the Spike software.
This is a repost of the article below, which I wrote on the Robocup Junior Australia website.
It is being reposted here as a backup of the information and attachments.
In this article I will explain the theory and initial code to get a Lego Spike Prime robot following a wall.
Disclaimer: This article will use Robocup Junior Australia‘s Rescue (Maze) Challenge with a Lego Spike Prime robot as an example.
At the end of the second article in this series, I mentioned some additional line following methods. In this article I will explain the theory and initial code to get a Lego Spike Prime robot following a line.
Disclaimer: This article will use Robocup Junior Australia‘s Rescue (Line) Challenge with a Lego Spike Prime robot as an example.
If you have not read the previous articles, please do so before continuing:
One of the challenges with the Robocup Junior Australia Line Rescue challenge is handling when the tile colours are reversed, that is a white line on a black background. This tile is called “Night Drive”.
There is also a tile which has a wider black line but is still on a white background. This tile is called “Wide Road” but is probably only used for the Western Australian competition.
This article explains techniques that can be used to update the line following algorithm for a two-sensor line following robot to handle these two tiles.
I have been involved with mentoring robotics to primary and secondary school students for many years. However, you might not know that back in 2023, I took over the role of Rescue Maze Challenge Coordinator for Robocup Junior Australia at the national level when my friend, Neil Gray, went to the US for a few years.
One of the primary projects I championed was the creation of a simpler Maze challenge than the original Open Maze challenge. We wanted something that beginners and younger students would enjoy getting involved with, which had a much gentler learning curve and lower cost barriers than the existing Open Maze challenge. This new division was named Mighty Maisy Maze (MMM) and was based on ideas that Neil had before he left.
You already know that I love robotics and working with primary and secondary school students to mentor them through the learning experience of building and programming robots for the Robocup Junior Australia challenges.
I was the Western Australia Rescue Line Coordinator for many years before moving to the Rescue Maze challenge in 2023. I have built many Rescue Line robots over the years, primarily using the various Lego Mindstorms platforms, including NXT, EV3 and now Spike Prime.
Accurately detecting colours without needing calibration has always been an issue with robots for both Robocup Junior Rescue Line and Rescue Maze competitions.
If the sensor can detect colours itself, it might have issues depending on the range of shades for each colour. For example: Lego EV3 colour sensors are known for being bad at detecting shades of green other than Lego Dark Green.
Using the RGB (Red, Green and Blue) values from a colour sensor does allow the developer to interpret the values and decide which colour that represents. However, using HSI (Hue, Saturation and Intensity) makes this exercise simple and accurate.
A couple of years ago I created some videos showing how to use the Lego Spike Prime set to build robots for the Robocup Junior Australia Rescue Line and Rescue Maze challenges.
This article is just to make them easier to find from David’s Robotics Portal.
Today’s article is a welcome addition to David’s Robotics Portal. It is a “brain dump” of all the hints, tricks and techniques I can think of that will help you create a successful dancing robot for the Robocup Junior Australia Onstage Performance challenge.
If you are planning to compete in this challenge, the information in this article will help you get the best performance and the most points you can.