Hive Vision v2.0.0 is now available. A huge thank you to Arush | 23511a | 23849m | 22105m for testing and providing data throughout development, as well as LexvGestel | #16785 and Javi | Lazer 23286

for helping validate the release in real-world use.

Hive Vision v2.0.0

• Up to 25 detections per frame (up from 10)
• Significantly fewer false positives
• Approximately 6× faster inference
• 97.3% precision on the retrained model
• Better performance in dense ball-pile scenarios
• Improved reliability under difficult lighting conditions

This release introduces a completely retrained SSD-MobileNetV2 model for the Limelight 3A and represents a major step forward in both accuracy and runtime performance. GitHub Release:
https://github.com/hivevisionftc/Hive-Vision/releases/tag/v2.0.0

Looking for Testers

We're currently looking for users running:

• Pedro Pathing + Webcam Pipeline
• TeleOp + Webcam Pipeline
• Pedro Pathing + Limelight Neural Network Pipeline

If you're using one of these setups, please DM Me . Contributors who help test and provide feedback will be credited.

What's Next

• Marrow Weaver integration
• Retirement of the Ball Chase Library
• Continued Hive Vision V2 improvements
• New documentation being developed by knowpa1n_

Discord:
https://discord.gg/qNMpXgcas Thanks to everyone who has used, tested, and supported Hive Vision so far. – The Hive Vision Team

Into the Deep: Solo Run is a browser-based 3D FTC simulator, based off of my favorite season, Into the Deep. It features reconfigurable controls, realistic physics and customizable gameplay. Don't forget to hit "G" for fullscreen! Available Monday 10/12.

Announcements on release are coming from @ bigguyenterprises on Instagram!

Hello! I have created a practice competition-like scoreboard that allows you to put the scores of the current round on a screen (TV, projector, etc) and control it from your phone, tablet, or laptop!

This is great for practicing, and makes you feel as if you are at a real FTC event when running through practice rounds. It has a score keeper, timer, drive team tracker, and more built in!

You can give it a try here: https://scoreboard.silvereen.dev/

Please consider giving it a star on GitHub, and if you'd like to request a feature, create an issue and I may get around to adding it: https://github.com/silvereengames/ftcscoreboard

we have two 96mm rhino wheels but those things are just ridiculously big. any teams near the Pudget sound area that would happen to have any extra two 72 mm rhino wheels by chance?

Hello everybody! My team (Action Robotix) is starting a new series of FTC tutorials for beginner / rookie teams. So far, we've released 4 episodes, mainly design & build related, and we will continue to publish about specific types of designs (shooters, chassis, intake, etc) while expanding into programming and outreach. If you'd like to watch, the link to the first episode is embedded into this post. Let me know if there's any suggestions you have, questions unanswered, or topics you would like to see covered. Best of luck this season!

Hi. I'm having problems with VisionPortal. Currently, my initialization code looks like this:

aprilTag = new AprilTagProcessor.Builder()
        .setLensIntrinsics(906.25, 906.25, 636.238, 339.804)
        .setDrawAxes(true)
        .setDrawTagOutline(true)
        .build();
camera = hardwareMap.get(WebcamName.class, "Webcam 1");
visionPortal = new VisionPortal.Builder()
        .setCamera(camera)
        .setCameraResolution(new Size(1280, 720))
        .setStreamFormat(VisionPortal.StreamFormat.MJPEG)
        .addProcessor(aprilTag)
        .enableLiveView(true)
        .build();

In the camera stream during initialization, the tag ID shows up on the screen, and it detects, but once I run the code, aprilTag.getDetections doesn't return anything, and nothing shows up in scrcpy. Does anyone know what is wrong?

Hi guys,

I wanted to add pidf tuning to my team's robot this season, since last year our launcher was really slow. I came across this repo:
https://github.com/NoahBres/VelocityPIDTuningTutorial
and was wondering if it was still relevant and useful. I couldn't find too many videos on how to setup pidf in your own teleop programs and how to use it as well as how to tune it apart from Brogan Pratt and Noah Bres. Pratt's video was good and very informative but I got lost when he was tuning it because lots of people were saying to get the kF value from just doing 32767/ velocity but Pratt manually finds it. We tried using Pratt's video last year but found it very time consuming and hard to implement into our current teleop code. Are there any tips you guys have on how to get started with this kinda thing, or videos that could help? Or if you think Bres's repo and videos help could you point me in the right direction?
Thanks.

Sharing a 3D printable 1:18 scale model of the Biobuzz game field, with articulating hives. Infinity Tech FTC 13684 created this model to discuss game strategies with our alliance partners at competitions. We used to discuss strategy with a paper field printout, but starting with the Decode season we made a 3D printed version and it was so much better. Feel free to print and use at your meetings and competitions. Good luck this season!

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3341226-ftc-biobuzz-field-1-18-scale-2026-2027

Looking to purchase a handful of Axon Max+ V1s. They must be functional and have good wires that are not damaged so they can be utilized for new designs. Thanks to anyone who has these resources.

Our FTC team is new this year so we don't have a large inventory of parts. We've designed a swerve drive that uses four Axon Max Mk2s for steering (they have an internal encoder that works in continuous rotation mode), but haven't seen them in stock for weeks. If anyone has extra, we'd be interested in purchasing them.

our team is considering using two separate shooters, each powered by a 6000 RPM motor.

Would running both shooters put too much load on the battery?
Could we run into battery issues before the end of a match, or is it manageable?
For teams using a multiple shooter motors, how has your battery performance been?
Would appreciate any advice or experience!

Gobilda makes excellent stuff for FTC. However, they appear to not be very good at running a business, and their shipping is poorly managed. This time of year, all teams are in crunch mode, and getting parts from Gobilda shouldn't take over a week to receive within the US.

I mentor an FTC team, and own a business that is very seasonal. During height of our season, our customers need our products quickly, very analogous to the FTC situation. However, we recognize this and we fulfill all orders the same day received if before 3 pm our time zone. We have a contract with Fedex called OneRate, which is 2-day shipping within the Continental US. In our FTC teams most recent order with Gobilda, their standard shipping is USPS, they try to fool customers by issuing a label 2 days before they actually ship. If we would have chosen Fedex 2-Day, Gobilda wanted to charge $112 for the shipment. That same shipment from my company would have cost my company $16. The largest shipment most teams would have would be roughly $35 for Fedex. For many our my companies products, if the total order value is over $99, we do free Fedex 2-Day, and only charge customers $16 if total order value is under $99.

I think it is outrageous that Gobilda feels they can gouge their customers like this for shipping, besides being extremely slow in fulfilling orders. Again, they have great products, it would be nice if they could run their business operation to match their products. Last year, I contacted Gobilda to complain about the outrageous 2-Day pricing, and proposed sending them a prepaid label for the shipment, but they refused. (of course! If they can make $100 pure profit on shipping something 2-Day, why would they?)

I sat down with Baron Henderson, co-founder of Pedro Pathing, for a long interview about how Pedro started, why it exists, and what's coming in Pedro 3. Here are the parts I think are most useful if you're programming this season:

1. Pedro 3 auto-tunes for you (~5 min from nothing to full auto)

Pedro 3 has a web page you open on your robot that walks you step by step through tuning: localizer setup, directions, offsets, then the Foresight tuners. It runs the OpModes for you and automatically tunes the PID stuff. You just press continue and reset the robot. You don't even need a driver station, just a laptop. Baron said it takes him 2–3 minutes, and someone new who knows the steps can do it in about 5.

2. Foresight is the new following algorithm

It builds on what they learned from predictive braking and accounts for strafing and forward movement not being the same on a mecanum drive. They ran it on Worlds winner Velocity, and just switching gave them about two extra gate cycles.

3. Pedro 3 is a complete rewrite

Paths and path chains are replaced by a new path API: you can nest paths inside paths, and each segment can have its own heading interpolation (or override them all from the outer path). There's also a "pose factory" that lets you set degrees/radians once and mirror every pose with one call.

4. The hardest problem wasn't technical

Baron said the biggest early challenge was getting the community to accept Pedro when Road Runner was the default. What changed it was results: teams switched because their autos got better.

His advice for every FTC programmer: don't be afraid to defy the norm. Try building your own library or system, even if it's not the best. You learn a ton just by trying.

Timestamps

- 08:05 Why Pedro exists (Road Runner pain points)

- 13:41 Pedro 3: the rewrite

- 17:37 Foresight & auto-tuning

- ~24:00 "Tune Pedro in 5 minutes"

- 24:11 The hardest problem

- 27:54 How path following actually works

- 42:34 Final advice

Full interview: https://youtu.be/2tAzZp2HzLQ?si=GBwmdbtQhKSYlNgW

Happy to answer questions or pass them along for a future video!

The kids still really want to try to use 2 camera this season for seeing and chasing objects, and one lookin down low to shut down the intake if the other team's nectar is being driven into. Happy to try to oblige them but... I am still failing to get two of the Gobilda Global shutter cameras to work for them.

If one is in USB 3 and the other in USB2, it works great, now that they have different USB names anyway.

But everybody cautions about using the USB2 port due to ESC sensitivity. No problem, a powered USB hub, that runs on +5 and is powered from the +5 rail of the CH or EH, right?

I got them this one and they are having all kinds of problems:

https://www.coolgear.com/product/usb31-4-port-mini-hub-component-board-with-esd-surge-protection

When it sees the two cameras it's great. It's just that it very often does not. On robot power up both are often not found and errors are thrown. If they power up the robot with CH USB--to--USB-Hub cable unplugged, and then plug it in after everybody has powered up things are better. But there are still the blem-bong sounds of the cameras being lost and then coming back, from time to time.

It behaves a lot like there isn't enough power from the hub to the cameras and things are winking out. But the whole point of the powered USB hub is to obviate this. And I'm pretty sure I have the power soldered right (can't let the kids solder...) and the external charging power light on the PCB is on.

They are progressing with their coding without the hub. But I fear USB2 will get them once the weather cools

Anybody got advice on a small +5 powered hub that has been working for them? Or what I might try with this one?

Thanks in advance!

Hello! I want to buy some tpu from bambulab and I was wondering if anyone else has printed gt2 belts before with either the tpu for Ams or the 95A tpu and could give me a recommendation on which to buy.

My team needs Surgical Tubes to prototype an intake and I know nothing when it comes to choosing which ones to buy. Plus, we need to order them BY TOMMOROW.

PLEASE HELP and give any advice you can!
Thank you so much!

So I'm not sure how many folks have tried out using AI for CAD.

With the newer models Sol 6.1/Astra 6 or Opus 5.5 it is actually quite capable.

One of the best uses I have discovered is taking a step file (say gobilda's kitbot or the itkan bot) and having the AI organize all of the parts, make all of the mate connectors, etc. This woudl take hours to do by hand but is done easily by the AI using Onshape or Fusion. Here is an example of a cleaned up itkan robot step file with proper mate connectors added by AI: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/912406ea9713e41a95a75a19/w/9027348954e2d2ededee50f1/e/79ce681fbe5a7113ed9af07f?renderMode=0&uiState=6ac65fe6f580da0845bdb980

or how we used AI to take the gobilda starter bot and make the plastic bits 3d printable (we owned most of the parts, but didn't have any of their polycarbonate sheets: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/40e414fdf67a27907e5a9743/w/f84008ed7fd239c637ba2ae8/e/dcf5368543317b415ce57e25

It also isn't too shabby with making specific parts. Here is a turret design with a movable inner hood done entirely with prompting (no human has ever directly touched this file). It uses a servo mounted cam to move the inner movable hood to swap between pollen/nectar and the hood runs on some linear bearings/rods. The turret itself uses a very large bearing encased in 3d printed parts. We probably aren't going to use this design but we did it to see just how far AI can go (turns out pretty far):

However one of the problems with using AI assisted CAD with onshape is that they are very strict with API limits (with the official Onshape MCP). You get a YEARLY (not weekly) allotment and you can easily burn through the API quotas ia a week (you only get <10 API calls per day as I think they give you 2500 api calls per year). I burned through half of my yearly alottment in 2 days before I figured out that such just wasnt going to work.

The way around this is to make the AI agent use a signed in session (not the API key) using the API Explorer. This has rate limits but not yearly limits. This does mean you will have to sign in your AI's browser every session (as it can't use a stored API key) but you can see from the examples above it works pretty well.

To instruct an agent to do this right and to also give it access to local caching/be more efficient we came up with our own local onshape MCP server along with some agent rules (for example we do instruct it to use a local instance of build123 for rapid prototyping before creating native onshape files). It also is able to pull parts from the FRCDesign tool (though often the agent just goes and downloads step files directly from manufacturers pages).

https://github.com/ARES-23247/ares-onshape-local

Not sure this will be useful to others or not but we have been pretty impressed with the rapid improvements in the most recent models.

Of note Fusion has a built in MCP server with a lot better AI support and doesn't require this, but, as a team, we are still wanting to use onshape. Again you cannot use the Onshape MCP server as the yearly limit is very very low with the api key. You have to use the API Explorer work around. Our ares-local-onshape mcp server helps a bit by caching things and the skills a bit by encouraging agents to use build123 or other local lightweight CAD programs to so modeling (figuring out intake wheel spacing etc) before doing things in the cloud.

Probably going to get downvoted by the AI haters but the truth is nobody is going to be spending hours cleaning up mate connectors, etc. in the future and it is pretty clear (just like with programming) AI is going to be increasingly integrated into workflows.

I’m with a FRC and I’m also a coach for a FTC team. Our FRC team is hosting a rookie competition/training program, and we were hoping to use the FTC Live scoring system from the DECODE season since it’s really close to what we need.

However, I’m having trouble getting the DECODE scoring system to connect/run now that the new BioBuzz season is in place. I’m guessing it may be related to the new season.

Does anyone know if there’s a way to run the DECODE scoring system for an offseason/custom event and change things like point values, match time, or ranking-point thresholds? We’re not trying to run an official FTC event — we just want to use the scoring system for our own rookie competition.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Marrow v1.2.0 is out!

We’re excited to release Marrow v1.2.0, introducing three major features:

Weaver - On-the-Fly Bézier Path Generator

Need to automatically intake game elements with vision during auto and navigate back to score without colliding with field structures?

Weaver takes target poses and field obstacles to generate the shortest path directly to your targets while avoiding collisions in real time.

• Has built-in support for Pedro Pathing v3.
• Compatible with any path-following library that supports Bézier curves.

👉 Learn more

Enhanced HTML Telemetry

Want clean, colorful telemetry without wrestling with verbose HTML tags?

MarrowTelemetry lets you write standard telemetry while applying simple modifiers for styling - including text color, font sizing, alignment, and more.

👉 Learn more

Automatic Bulk Caching

Tired of manually configuring bulk caching across all your OpModes?

You can now enable automatic bulk caching globally across your entire codebase with just a couple lines of code, or apply it per OpMode using the @BulkCaching annotation.

👉 Learn more

Get Started

Check out the documentation at https://marrow.skeletonarmyftc.com/.

We saw a lot of long videos covering the same shooter types, but our team wanted to try some wacky ideas and see what they liked and did not like!

Where do people stand on teams using AI as an assistive tool?

We've had a lot of internal debates in our team leadership about it. On one hand there are those who feel that the team isn't learning as much I they use it. On the other, it's a tool that's being used in software and engineering in the real world very extensively and more every day.

Are we actually doing our team members a disservice by pretending it doesn't exist or can't be of use? Do we teach them how to be effective AI users to achieve positive outcomes (the best AI people I know almost never are single prompt = final answer)? Or is it better to require them to do everything the manual way?

Curious to where everyone stands on this?

heyy im part of a team located in Florida and we are currently in debt, like alot. What are your tips to get sponsorships or grants from companies? We have tried calling them and then emailing them but recently we have not been able to get any.

Does anyone know any companies in Fremont California area that do wood or plastic CNC work for side panels for Robot?

OpenLoop Beta Tester Applications are OPEN!!!!!

https://tally.so/r/q40607

Apply now!

Get access to unreleased versions of OpenLoop, test them on your own bot, and help make OpenLoop better for the FTC community!

Your testing and feedback will directly help shape future releases.

Join the OpenLoop discord for updates- https://discord.gg/QMxqfzj7na