Vex Sensors

[Ethan_Green]

Hello,
II would like to use a bump switch for my autonomous this year. have the one from the VEX Cortex. While they should be compatible, I can't find anything about them being used in FRC. Can anyone give me some input? Any other recommended bump sensors?

[AustinShalit]

The sensor should work with the roboRIO digital input port. Connect the ground line of the DIO port to the ground of the sensor and the signal line of DIO to the signal line of the sensor. One important note about these sensors is that they are not forgiving so you might need to think about some of the mechanical issues that could arise if you run into something too hard.

[Ethan_Green]

Thanks, I figured they should, Just wanted to ask. Still looking for other sensors if possible. I just have the bump sensors on hand

[AustinShalit]

I have seen a lot of teams use limit switches like this one:
https://www.andymark.com/products/pu...NGM4MGZkZjFhMw

Another thing teams use (if sensing something internal to the robot) are Hall effect sensors. These detect the presence of a magnetic field and tend to be more reliable than limit switches for repeated use because there is no physical contact between devices. They can be harder to use and plan for though:
http://www.revrobotics.com/rev-31-1462/

[Ethan_Green]

Thanks, I'm trying to use one to detect when we hit the goal in autonomous. Not shooting trying to dump.

[AustinShalit]

Ah. In that case you might consider looking into a sensor that gives more information than a digital sensor. Digital sensors (like discussed above) only have 2 states. You might want to look into analog sensors that can give you a distance to the goal. Here is an example of an ultrasonic sensor: https://www.andymark.com/products/ul...b1200-maxbotix

More information about how they work can be found here: https://docs.wpilib.org/en/latest/do...onics-hardware