---
title: Kit talk plan
tags: Templates, Talk
description: View the slide with "Slide Mode".
---

# RoboCon Kit

### To do at the start:

<!-- Put the link to this slide here so people can follow -->
- [ ] Share link to follow along: https://hackmd.io/@YWVFpltDQVGSLZVIq-NFJQ/HJuZs2pEO
- [ ] Start recording
- [ ] Preface with tell me if too slow/fast

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## What is RoboCon?

- Show the website https://hr-robocon.org/
- Why RC?
- Why is the kit needed

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## The current state of kit

### RC hardware

- Give a full list of what is in the kit:
- Take the box apart
- Talk through what each board does
- Talk about how GG does what it does
- Page 4 for level shifter diagram: https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/AN10441.pdf
- If interest can talk about how cytron works

Lid top:

Lid bottom (this is lid 2.1, lid 2.2 moves the blue LED off the GG and onto the back side of the lid):

Camera back

Camera front

Top case component:

Cytron board:

Shim to space the motor board off the GG

Green giant bottom:

Green giant top:

RPi in RC case:

### RC software

- Go back to **images** and show process for competitors
- The software stack draw on paper:
- unix stuff (rc.local etc)
- robot lib (as it stands with pykoki)
- shepherd
- sheep
- competition
- USB sticks, different wifi AP
- Shepherd then log streams to owl
- SMB file sharing
- Leader board update
- competition screens etc see #events
- The update process, usb sticks/runs as root
- Open up a terminal and start the software stack
- How the robot lib works
- How shepherd works
- How sheep works
- How to get started with the stack
- WSL recommend for windows users
- Can vaguely mention the website but really brenden needs to do this

### Current state of beta devlopment

- april tags/py3
- Unit testing for the robot lib :+1:, none yet for sheep/shepherd :-1:
- shepherd-rs
- Sheep upgrades (prototypes which exist):
- socket.io client-server comms
- general bug fixing
- Would be nice to not spam into peoples downloads folder

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## The future...

**None of the bellow will happen without funding reminder**

### An evaluation:
#### Good things

- Opotunities for design/mech
- Very open ended:
- You can physically see this as a range of robots
- Rewards actual results, as well as creative thinking
- Assesible computer vision is our USP
- Free to enter and take part
- Linearity between effort and reward
- There is no syllybus

#### Problems

- Don't get to keep their robots
- Expenisve to run
- Little room for electronics
- Room for lots of mech but no support is given so requires having an awsome teacher for this
- People can turn up to the competition with just the kit but aren't very competitive
- There is no syllybus

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### GET PEOPLE TO THINK OF OWN IDEAS BEFORE SHARING OWN

### Thoughts on kit

- We spend money every year on kit as it gets lost/degrades so there is a number where a "disposable kit" could be cheaper
- For will to believe that it is possible probally need a BOM
- Hard to make a BOM if don't know what cost point to target
- The current kit is way overspec'd for >50% of participants

Possible solution, possibly better ones out there:
- use a micro, pi pico would be nice, could fall back to ardunio if don't care about CV
- use an esp to program

### Thoughts on competition design

- Move to a table based competition
- Should have more support on the mech side:
- Running tech days doesn't seem to happen much, these should be planned in at the start of the year? Aim for once a month? Techday != arena being set up
- It should be truely accessible, atm there is still money required, half of the kit cost should be allocated to students buying what they want
- Not sure if to use real money or "credits"
- Real money is more versatile

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## Things in the robotiverse

### Will's plan to take over the nation
- Will has a plan to make robocon a national competion.
- I don't want to steal his thunder so if this is interesting go speak to him

### Projects which have never been completed

- Restoring old robots:
- Pac-bot just needs a brain box to work, there is a repo under systemetric where we have it working
- Set a goal for something to do with the mecanium wheel robot, real time computer vision tracking?

### Southampton+ Ash developments

- j5 (its a HAL)
- sb-vision and other