QikEasy IR Seeker

QikEasy IR Seeker is the perfect RoboCup Jr IR soccer sensor designed to work with both LEGO Spike Prime and other robotic systems.

Drawing on our team’s previous experience in creating Spike Prime add-on devices, our newly developed QikEasy IR Seeker significantly outperforms other similar products available on the market:

• • Remarkable accuracy in detecting the direction of the IR Ball
  • Exceptionally stable that it never crashes
  • More budget-friendly compared to other sensors on the market

Supported Robotic Platforms

QikEasy IR Seeker is compatible with both Spike Prime robots and non-LEGO robots.

For Spike Prime use, user may access IR Seeker data with either Word Block or Python programming.

For non-LEGO robots, IR Seeker is compatible as long as the micro controller supports 3.3V i2c protocol.  The IR Seeker acts as an i2c slave device. User may access the sensed direction and signal strength of the IR Ball, You may also access the signal strengths of each of the 5 individual IR receivers.

Technical Specification

QikEasy IR Seeker is specifically designed to work with modulated pulse waveform compliant to the current RoboCup Junior standards. The pulse is a step waveform emitted once every 833μs modulated with a 40KHz carrier.  It is compatible with Mode-A pulses emitted by a RoboCup Junior standard IR Ball such as the RCJ-05.

QikEasy IR Seeker Benefits

HOW QIKEASY IR SEEKER ACHIEVES ITS SUPERIOR ACCURACY

HOW IT WORKS?  Unlike most other products or DIY sensors, QikEasy IR Seeker uses real 40KHz (which is the frequency of the carrier wave output by the IR Ball) IR receivers and not the 38KHz ones.  Additionally, instead of reading the strengths through the analog method (after passing the IR receiver output through a Low Pass filter), our speedy microcontroller does all the heavy lifting in measuring the inverted pulse widths of the IR receiver outputs which are used to calculate the IR signal strength thus the distance from the IR Ball.

Here are the main ingredients of our secret sauce in achieving the great accuracy:

• • Use IR receivers with filter for 40KHz carrier, not 38KHz.
  • Calculate signal strengths digitally by measuring pulse widths of the IR Receiver outputs.
  • Use running averages of measured strength values to smooth out the values.
  • Our IR receivers are pre-matched through our proprietary calibration process.  This ensures that the 5 IR Receivers on each IR Seeker board return approximately the same values for IR signals of same intensity.
  • Specially designed enclosure is optically optimized to allow QikEasy IR Seeker to offer the most accurate directional results.

All these enable our IR Seeker device to precisely determine the direction and distance from the IR ball.

Proprietary Calibration Process

Proprietary Calibration Process: Matching IR Receivers are carefully selected. This process significantly increases the accuracy of our product.

Sparing no expense, we discard approx. 50% of IR Receivers that do not meet our quality standard.

Reliable

QikEasy IR Seeker is Super Stable and is able to maintain uninterrupted operation for an extended period of time. Our tests had demonstrated that it keeps on working without any interruption (or any crashes) for duration of multiple consecutive full soccer games.

180° vs 360° Configuration

The 180 degree pack includes only one IR Seeker which covers 180 degree of IR sensing.  This means it can only provide correct results when the IR Ball is in front of the sensor.  When the ball is at the back, the sensor may return false data.

In general, we highly recommend teams to get the 360 degree pack.

To have full 360 degree coverage, you should purchase the 360 degree pack which includes 2 IR Seekers.  Depending on the design of your robot, you may or may not need 360 degree coverage. For the 360° configuration, one may either stack all the boards together in one stack, or connect the front and back IR Seeker boards together through a 16 pin cable.

Supporting Effective Learning with Comprehensive Resources

Unlike other vendors, we provide teachers with comprehensive resources in supporting proficient use of our products. In addition to supplying the hardware, we will provide a series of lessons and detailed documentation to ensure that both students and teachers can fully understand how to use our products effectively.

Teachers are encouraged to use our provided resources as teaching material in classroms. We will ensure that teachers are well equipped to educate their students with minimum effort.

Users may also post questions on our Facebook group, and we are always there to help you with using our products.

Protective Covers

The 3D-printed protective covers featuring a robotic theme design not only safeguard our devices from mishandling, they also projects a playful aesthetic that encourages student engagement.

Future Proof

QikEasy IR Seeker is built on the QikEasy Expander platform. Because Spike Prime hub doesn’t work with i2c device by itself, the QikEasy Expander is provided to bridge connectivity between Spike Prime hub and the IR Seeker i2c device.

In the future, we will provide additional sensor devices compatible with the QikEasy Expander platform. Future devices may include environmental sensor, magnetometer, and gesture sensor.

QikEasy Expander is firmware upgradable over Wifi to allow for bug fixes and new features. Note that the Over-The-Air firmware upgrade capability is only available on QikEasy Expander.

Experiences You can Trust

Our engineers has great experience in producing robotic and other electronic products:

• Our co-founders had their Masters Degrees in Electrical Engineering from very prestigious universities: Stanford and U.B.C.  One of them has licensed Professional Engineer designation in Canada.
• Our team has decades of management and engineering experiences from companies like IBM, NEC and LSI Logic.
• We successfully funded & delivered a previous Spike Prime project on Indiegogo.  This previous product had zero return/failure rate.

Attention: RoboCup Contestants Using Spike Prime or Non-LEGO robots

The Challenge: The RoboCup Jr Soccer sensors on the market are mostly inaccurate and unreliable.  The barrier for student teams to create their own IR Sensor is extremely high. This limits the number of teams entering into the competition.

Solution:

QikEasy IR Seeker provides you a one stop shop for all your IR Sensor needs.  Our sensor is designed for both LEGO and non-LEGO robots.  For Spike Prime, our sensor can be programmed with either Word Block or Python out of the box.  For generic robots, our sensor is compatible as long as your robot supports 3.3V i2c protocol.

Lowers Technical Barrier.  QikEasy IR Seeker is accurate and easy to use.  Using our sensor allows a team to focus their effort on soccer playing strategies instead of the details of IR sensor implementation.

Eases Budget Constraint.  In addition to its top-notch accuracy and reliable performance, QikEasy IR Seeker is significantly more affordable than other LEGO compatible soccer sensors on the market.  A school can now buy more sensors with their available budget, thus it can have more teams joining the Robocup competitions.

Attention: RoboCup Jr Regional Organizers

As RoboCup regional organizers, one of your goals must be to expand participation in RoboCup events by attracting new contestants. However, the technical complexities of the soccer games make this challenging.  Since many schools already have robotic classes/clubs that use LEGO Spike Prime, we believe that your marketing efforts should target these institutions.  QikEasy IR Seeker greatly simplifies the technical challenge in tracking the soccer ball on Spike Prime robots, making it the ideal product to facilitate entry into RoboCup competitions.

QikEasy IR Seeker provides the best IR Ball sensing capability on the market for Spike Prime robots. We are always open to work Regional Orgainizers to help promote and support these events.  We offer special discounts for Regional Organizers to order samples for evaluation. Please contact us to see how we can work together.

Attention: RoboCup Soccer Contestants Using EV3 or NXT robots with HiTechnic IR Seeker

With the advantages that QikEasy IR Seeker provides, it is NOW time to upgrade to Spike Prime. You probably have been holding off the upgrade because HiTechnic IR Seeker is not compatible with Spike Prime.  The good news is that QikEasy IR Seeker provides functionality equivalent to HiTechnic IR Seeker for Spike Prime robots, yet it is more accurate, more flexible and more reliable.

In addition, if you have a lot of EV3 sensors that you want to reuse on your Spike Prime robots, you may consider using our other product – QikEasy Adapter.  QikEasy Adapter enables these EV3 sensors to be reusable on your new Spike Prime robots.

Both EV3 and NXT platforms have long been discontinued by LEGO.  Now, there is no more excuse for delaying your upgrade to Spike Prime.

Resellers : Preferred Pricing for Education Robotic Resellers

We love to work with resellers, especially ones that are already selling LEGO robotic systems or RoboCup related accessories to schools.   Our product helps ease school teams to enter RoboCup Jr Soccer competitions by offering them an accurate, and reliable yet affordable sensor.

For larger quantity packages that you don’t see as Indiegogo Perks, please contact us directly. We will quote you our best price for the quantity you want.

Little Fun Projects for Your Students

During RoboCup off-seasons, you may use QikEasy IR Seeker to create some little fun projects with your students. Here are two examples:

Product Shipping

We ship to more than 40 destinations around the world including:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam

If your country is not on this list, please contact us and we will see if we can add support for it.

The shipping cost* will be the same for either the IR Seeker 180 Degree Pack or the IR Seeker 360 Degree Pack.  For most countries (except Hong Kong, Chile and Colombia), the cost will be HK$80 (~US $10).    It will cost HK$40 (~US$5) to ship to Hong Kong, and HK$120 (~$15) to ship to Chile or Colombia.

* The cost for shipping the classroom set will be a little bit most expensive. You can find the exact shipping cost before you pay for your purchase.