Ball tracking
Ballsy move!
This is where you can make Wheelson follow a ball!
Let's go through what we will need and what we can do!
Select Ball Tracking in the menu
Navigate through the menu by using the directional buttons and select Line Tracking by clicking on the middle, SELECT, button!
Move Wheelson's camera up
As the ball will be placed in front of Wheelson, we need to move Wheelsons camera into the forward-facing position, to do this:
- Using two hands, push open the side panels so the Headlights + Camera panel pops out.
- Then move the Headlights + Camera panel into the forward-facing position with your hands, by slotting it into the top slot, as shown.
- Once in position, let the side panels close and secure the Headlights + Camera panel in place.
Now that the camera is in position, let's get tracking!
What you will also need!
Before we can follow a ball, we need a ball! Wheelson is programmed in a way where we can select the colour of the ball we want to track, I'll show you how to do that in a bit!
We found that the best-coloured ball to use is a Blue Ball! So if you have a blue ball, great, if not then go find a ping pong ball and colour it blue with a sharpie!
Let's get balling!
On the Ball Tracking page you will see a few different things:
- A screen in the middle that shows a live feed of what Wheelson sees!
- 4 red motor icons, 2 on either side of the screen.
Activate Wheelsons motors - To make sure Wheelson doesn't just drive off as soon as he sees a ball, we turned the motors off when you enter the Ball Tracking mode. To toggle the motors on/off, simply click the DOWN button. As you'll see, the icons will turn to white, meaning they are active, and if Wheelson is detecting a ball, he will start to move towards it!
Make it stop - If you want Wheelson to stop, click the DOWN button again and you should see that Wheelson's motor icons turn back to red and he stops moving!
See what Wheelson sees - Another cool feature can be activated by pressing the SELECT button. once pressed, you'll notice that the screen turns black and white. This is what Wheelson actually sees.
The BLACK pixels are all irrelevant stuff that Wheelson doesn't need to worry about however you'll notice that the WHITE pixels also align with the ball we placed in front of it, this is because Wheelson is searching for everything that is a specific colour, in our case it's blue but we will cover how to change that in the next section!
You will also notice that Wheelson is starting to draw circles around groups of white pixels. This is him trying to comprehend and understand what is a ball and what is just some noise! Once he is confident that he has found the ball, the light blue circle will turn to a dark blue circle and he will begin to follow the ball (if his motors are activated of course!).
To exit out of the B&W mode, simply press the select button again.
Edit the ball colour- Using a green ball? Maybe a red ball? It doesn't matter, we can change the coloured ball Wheelson is searching for by using the left and right buttons. The change is visible in the B&W mode, you'll notice that if we change the Ball Colour to green, the blue ball Wheelson was so confident about earlier doesn't even show up on the screen!
Ball-tastic! Mark this next one off your list. Ready to move onto some tracking?