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Subject: 
Re: Crate Contraption scripting system?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.org.us.smart
Date: 
Sun, 17 Oct 2004 19:13:15 GMT
Viewed: 
2197 times
  
In lugnet.org.us.smart, Gus Jansson wrote:

I'm not sure how 'exactly' I can describe the
system but I'll give it a try.

   Wow. Thank you for an absolutely fabulous describtion - that is far more than
I hoped for, and it makes a lot of things clearer.

...a very shiny metallic tape that I bought at
Home Depot or Lowe’s... The raw value is around
100 below the value for white.

   That's probably next on my list. I grabbed some cheap retroreflective tapa at
Meijer's the other day, and could only get readings about 5-8 raw units below
"white", marginal at best. Instead of melamine board I use the stiff but
roll-up-able (is that a word?) plastic sheeting used as "shower walls" ($14 for
8x4, easily cut, and can be rolled up for transport) - it comes, I'm told, in a
nice neutral gray, but it's a special order and they won't get it for under 10
sheet or something. Too bad.

The program is written in NQC which means I have to
deal with some limitations,

   and your list of tricks to get around and utilize the RCX are even more
valuable than the description of the scripting system! Thank you again, I'd
never thought about "recruiting" local variables in such a fashion, and it's a
nice example of how to use #pragma to start a single program in several
pre-programmed modes.

I was looking at a completely different signaling
system (barcode reading, using reflective tape to
signal the beginning/end of the barcode). This has
some advantages (well, maybe...)

This is an interesting idea that I have also considered.
One problem is that it may be difficult to use the same
sensor to track the line that you use to read the barcode.
It may require a seperate light sensor just to read the
barcode.

   My idea was originally to use a seperate light sensor on an outrigger to read
barcodes, and to have the line-following sensor always on the same side of the
line (ironicly, I'd not thought about switching which side of the line to follow
for branch points, but had a solution in mind that was very different. At first
this was just a means of navigating a layout, but then it occured to me that by
deploying and removing barcodes, a module could actively request service from
any passing forklift, without any IR signalling.
   Can I actually do that? Well, that remains to be seen - but at least now I've
voiced my ideas in a public forum, which usually gets me to try it :-).

I would also love to see photos of your ball contraption module.

   I'll have to take some and set up a brickshelf page sometime soon (don't have
one yet). Again, thanks for a wonderfully detailed description - the internal,
"hidden" workings of the Crate Contraption are just as fascinating as watching
the action "from the outside"!

--
Brian Davis



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Crate Contraption scripting system?
 
(...) That sounds very interesting. David Schilling has some white 3x7 boards that we are using that work fairly well. I would prefer something less glossy because then I get a better gray scale reading on the edge of the line. I'm going to look (...) (20 years ago, 18-Oct-04, to lugnet.org.us.smart)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Crate Contraption scripting system?
 
I'm not sure how 'exactly' I can describe the system but I'll give it a try. I'll basically describe how the scripting system is used and you can infer how the code must work. First of all, let me talk about the marker tape pieces. They come from a (...) (20 years ago, 17-Oct-04, to lugnet.org.us.smart)

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