I’ve done quite a lot of work on UTGP over the last couple of weeks.
To start with I made the course.
Then I used our 2019 line following code to time the course under vision control. This code doesn’t know about junctions, so I made it work as follows:
- Set the odometer to count down a fixed distance and stop. The distance set is 50mm short of the next junction.
- Follow the line until the odometer says stop.
- Drive 50mm without video guidance on the heading that was last specified by the line follower.
- Turn to the exit heading of the junction (as measured by the IMU).
- Drive 50mm without guidance on the new heading.
- Go to 1.
This method is a mixture of dead-reckoning and camera guidance so I’m not sure what points it would attract in the games. However, it is a “time on the board”. The best times are around 16 seconds, but it’s quite hard to measure.
I then set to work on updating the line following code to interpret junctions. I’ll be back soon to explain how that’s going.