The page describes how to use IR Seekers with LEGO Spike Prime robots. For usage with i2c compatible robots, please refer back to this page.
As you have already seen from the “Hardware Setup” documentation page, a QikEasy IR Seeker stack consists of a series of boards chained together. The first board connected to your Spike Prime hub is always the QikEasy Expander board.
After that, the first board (which should be an IR Seeker board) connected to the Expander board is called the First IR Seeker. If you have another IR Seeker in the chain, this last IR Seeker connected to your First IR Seeker is called the Second IR Seeker. The names are based on the order of the boards in the chain. It doesn’t matter if the connections are made through stacking or through the 16-pin cable.
The naming convention is important to recognize because how the measurements for the two IR Seekers are delivered through different attributes of the emulated Spike Prime Color Sensor. You will need to know which attributes are for which IR Seeker.
IR Seeker is optimized for short range direction detection. Once the range gets farther, inaccuracy may arise due to factors such as IR reflections bouncing back from the wall. We suggest teams to not only solely rely on IR Seeker for directing the robot to catch the ball. The robot should somehow be self-aware of its own location on the field. When it detects that the ball is at the far end of the field from the robot, one possible algorithm is to move the robot straight to the half field with the ball before following the direction detected by IR Seeker.
If your IR Seeker device(s) do not seem behave as you expect, try these troubleshooting tips:
If you still cannot solve your problem or if you suspect it may be an issue with our products, you may email us at info@novavolta.com to report the issue.