Our team has almost indisputable evidence from last year’s state tournament of a parent from a team on the adjacent table taking rapid shots with the flash going off multiple times a second having an impact on our robot.  As our robot came to spot where it needed to find a black line and respond, the sensor reading it got must have looked to light and it kept going well past where the black line was, even though the sensor went right across the line without noticing it.  Our sensor was shielded pretty well from the front, but it wasn’t possible to shield the side of the sensor well and this is the angle our robot was in with respect to the camera when it went astray and never found the line it was hunting for.  We were all surprised at the failure (which caused us to lose about 50 points) and it wasn’t until we were watching the footage later that night that we noticed the continuous flash photography next to our table and pointing right at our robot.  So coaches, please have your parents abide by rule of no flash photography during matches.

 

Andy Traiger

Vienna Robotics

 

 

 

Has anyone experienced flash photography interfering with light sensors during a mission run?   Our team was asking this questions and I do not have an answer. 

 

Scott Rakestraw

FLL Coach