The Challenges of Filming The Challenges

We've pretty much completed the robot build - and the code is mostly written, so now onto filming the challenges for submission to the competition. 

This is the easy part - or so we thought. Hmmm..... 

Challenge 1 - Framing the arena

The arena design went through many iterations. Initially it was going to be a wooden construction, complete with an MDF or plywood floor that we could put up anywhere. 

Then I managed to get some black plastic foamboard sheets cut to size online that we could stick together with velcro and tape, forming the walls of the arena. Rather than build a floor, we decided to use the kitchen floor. The kitchen has the best lighting in the house anyway - and with a ready made floor, that seemed the ideal way to go. 

The main challenge is, our kitchen is not particularly big. With the arena in place, there's not much room to put a camera.

So, in the end we managed to arrange the tripod, half on a worktop surface, and with one leg on a stool. 

This raised it high enough to just get the whole arena in the shot. 

So far so good. 

Challenge 2 - "It used to work!"  

Then came the filming of the challenges. First off was the "Tidy The Toys" challenge. This is the one we've probably put the most work into, but is not always reliable. 

In December last year - on the first iteration of the robot, we managed some pretty good runs. However, with the updated robot, I put it all together and it just didn't work as well. One issue we had was back in December it was dark early outside, and so the light inside was more consistent. 

Now I found that we would film one run, and find the blocks OK. But then the light outside would change and we'd no longer be able to find the blocks. In the end I had to configure in several shades of the same colour in order to find the blocks consistently. 

Another issue was that the distance finding was all over the place. This used to be very reliable. I went through many iterations analysing the data and trying to filter out any spikes and inaccuracies. But then I just replaced the sonar sensor with a new one - and a lot of the problems went away. 

So - it took many days of tweaking the code and configuration to get it reliable enough to attempt to film a proper run that we could submit. 

Challenge 3 - Keeping a Straight Face

So - we gathered the family to film the Tidy The Toys challenge. Max, our seven year old, volunteered to read out how we were going to do the challenge - i.e. "fully autonomous, stacking the blocks". 

However, we found he had a lot of trouble saying the word "autonomous". Every time he was about to say it, he started giggling. We didn't want to upset him by getting someone else to announce the introduction, so we decided to just film the challenge run without it. We can put a title card on the video with all the details, and then - if he can say it properly - we can put his audio over the title card. As long as the challenge is filmed in one take - I believe it's OK to edit the introduction. 

But we've finally got a version of the Tidy The Toys challenge suitable for submission. 

Next to film - "Up The Garden Path"....