Vision Sensors

With the introduction of the V5 kits came the vision sensor. It works as a camera, and can be used to detect colored objects and react accordingly. The camera is able to detect seven different colors at once, which can be useful, as most game objects in the VEX competition are different colors. Vision sensors may be more complicated to program and use than touch sensors, but they also can be used as a more advanced way to enable the robot to sense where it is on the field. One of the most useful features of the vision sensor is it’s ability to not only locate a certain color, but to be able to determine it’s position on an X Y coordinate plane. This can be used to detect a scoring object, and then automatically aligning the robot in order to pick up said object. By tilting the camera, this feature can also be used to determine distance, by using trigonometry.

In order to register a color on the vision sensor, go to the vision configuration window on the VexCode program. By connecting the vision sensor to a power source such as the brain, as well as hooking it up to the computer, the camera view should be visible on the configuration window. By placing the colored object desired to be registered in front of the camera and pressing the freeze button, clicking the color wanted and then pressing set should register it in the camera’s memory, which can then be used in the program.