Are cameras and rasberry pi allowed in this competition? as most line following competions dont allow this.
Hi,
Yes we allow cameras and raspberry pi. However be careful not to use any ML software premade to solve tasks, such as lone following, that may come with the camera. The use of these softwares is forbidden.
Also only your code is allowed to be run on the raspberry.
Best,
Matej
203 committee
hi,
Im not sure what you mean by “only your code is allowed to be run on the rasberry”. Can you please elaborate?
thanks for your time
Hi, as you probably know, raspberry is essentially a small computer. Therefore there could be many processes running on boot. To keep it in line with the rest of the rules, information obtained through any processes not programmed by students themselves are not allowed to be relayed to other controllers that might be present on the robot, or influence its decision making in any way.
Hopefully this clears things up, if you have more questions, or my answer was not clear enough, feel free to reach out again 
Matej
2023 committee
hello. can you please elaborate on “premade machine learning software”. Can we use libraries like “Tensorflow”, “OpenCV”, and the third party XML files created?
Hi,
Yes, OpenCV, Tensorflow, Pytorch are all allowed. However, in case you are using a neural network, or a learning based algorithm, we usually require some sort of results/proof of your work to be included in you TDPs and Engineering Journals and you should also be able to present this during interviews. This proof should be some training progress graphs, how you tuned hyperparameters and the dataset you created (in case of supervised learning), etc.
Basically, to elaborate what is allowed, everything that you worked on and understand. What I allured to with my previous statement are features that cameras such as Pixycam or Huskylens have. These cameras are able to detect different colors or objects, that you only have to take one picture of. These types of cameras are often marketed exactly for this functionality, so with raspberry Pi cameras you have nothing to worry about.
Hope this helps!
Matej
One more question. Can we use how many microcontrollers and microprocessors we deem necessary in the robot to achieve multitasking? For example raspberry pi will be in charge of colour detection and ball detection while ESP-32 will be in charge of line following.
Yes, that is fine. Just take a look at the section in the rules, and this forum comment regarding wireless communication, if you plan to use one, since there are some restrictions. If you plan to use digital pins, this, of course, doesn’t concern you at all.
Good luck!
Matej
One more question. Can we use the husky lens camera in the competition but we wont use the special button feature which allows for automatic detection? Just buying another camera is expensive.
Hi @Aryan,
Please refer to this answer. The camera is permitted to be used without the use of its own auto-detection function and software.
Ranyi
2024 committee
can we use pre-made models which we train ourselves using our ML code?
Hi @Aryan
Self-made ML algorithms are allowed. You will need to prepare training data/datasets etc. to prove that this is the result of your own work.
Ranyi
2024 committee