View Full Version : Theft hits Portland FRC Team 1432
http://www.katu.com/news/local/Stolen-laptop-leaves-local-robotics-team-scrambling-before-competition-297233311.html
There's a link on the team's website, if you would like to donate to help them out.
Brings up a question - how do other teams back up their robot's programming?
Github works for us.
I hope they can get things working.
DarkRune
24-03-2015, 00:14
Team 4159 uses GitHub. They offer a free private repos to FRC teams, though public repos work just as well. Excellent place to push code to. Let's multiple people work on the code together, with built in version control. It also keeps track of the changes in case something doesn't work you can go and pull the old version.
Brings up a question - how do other teams back up their robot's programming?
Commit early, commit often.
This is certainly one of the toughest ways to learn the value of version control that I'm aware of.
Brings up a question - how do other teams back up their robot's programming?
We Dropbox everything we do. I've heard great things about GitHub, but we've never taken the time to set it up.
orangemoore
24-03-2015, 00:17
The situation sounds very unfortunate.
Google drive/Dropbox or some other cloud based storage is probably the best way to save code. Currently we use labview and if we were programming with another language we would most likely use github.
This is a reminder for me to upload our code.
We Dropbox everything we do. I've heard great things about GitHub, but we've never taken the time to set it up.
Learn it now - you'll soon wonder how you ever got anything done without it. It's a 10x multiplier on your productivity especially if you work with others. Using Dropbox for code is just...not the way to do it.
ironic, I just ran across those insanely cute GitHub stickers in our FRC packet o' stuff today and thought "wow" this looks like something we should be using. Glad to hear others felt it was useful, we will check it out.
SousVide
24-03-2015, 00:27
terrible news for #1432, hope they recover well.
Our team use github as well. You can start with your code in a private repos and then change the repos to a public one once you are ready to publish it - before the end of the season.
Sperkowsky
24-03-2015, 00:44
We use github also. I'm not trying to offend the news people but to our team coding simple driving (tank mecanum omni ect) is something that take max 20 minutes and to program the lift another maybe 15. If that's not everyone I feel bad and we will help but it shouldn't be an issue for them to come back easily. I'd be more mad they just lost a 500-1000 piece of hardware.
dtengineering
24-03-2015, 01:34
A USB key of "known good" software taped to the driver station.
Github, Dropbox, Google Drive... none of them will help if you drop your laptop half-way through re-programming your robot, while you're standing in the queueing line.
With a flash drive and a helpful alliance partner, you at least stand a chance to set things right.
Jason
Travis Hoffman
24-03-2015, 01:49
http://www.katu.com/news/local/Stolen-laptop-leaves-local-robotics-team-scrambling-before-competition-297233311.html
There's a link on the team's website, if you would like to donate to help them out.
Brings up a question - how do other teams back up their robot's programming?
We make a GrabCAD project and upload the files there.
We also back up to a separate USB drive periodically.
Team 1432, do you need help re-writing your robot code?
If so, let me know, I'd be happy to help. You should be able to borrow spare Driver Station laptops from your local regional.
GreyingJay
24-03-2015, 08:47
We use github also. I'm not trying to offend the news people but to our team coding simple driving (tank mecanum omni ect) is something that take max 20 minutes and to program the lift another maybe 15. If that's not everyone I feel bad and we will help but it shouldn't be an issue for them to come back easily. I'd be more mad they just lost a 500-1000 piece of hardware.
True, but in the stress of competition.. You're right though, assuming a fairly standard drive train and mechanisms, it would not take long to take the sample robot code and turn it into a basic driving robot. You would lose your autonomous code and any mechanism state machines though.
A USB key of "known good" software taped to the driver station.
Github, Dropbox, Google Drive... none of them will help if you drop your laptop half-way through re-programming your robot, while you're standing in the queueing line.
Yes, my backup strategy would be, GitHub for all development, then a USB stick with the code, and a backup laptop.
GitHub works well but there is a bit of a learning curve, especially when multiple people are working in the same repo at the same time. People fork their own and make their changes and then make pull requests, but they should also pull often to keep theirs up to date. It takes some time to get used to the concept of version control, branches, forks, pushes, pulls, etc.
We were at a point in my team where the kids got in the habit of calling "MERGE!" when they were committing code. Everyone else in the room would yell it back, like a herd of mooing cattle. When we voted to name our robot, "MERGE" got second place!
MamaSpoldi
24-03-2015, 09:40
We use github also. I'm not trying to offend the news people but to our team coding simple driving (tank mecanum omni ect) is something that take max 20 minutes and to program the lift another maybe 15. If that's not everyone I feel bad and we will help but it shouldn't be an issue for them to come back easily. I'd be more mad they just lost a 500-1000 piece of hardware.
It may be true that you could get driving code that quickly, but why would you want to leave yourself with no other option. In addition, for our team the level of sensor integration and other control systems that we have implemented would take days if not weeks to re-create from scratch. This is why we make backups on a flashdrive as well as using an SVN repository on SourceForge.
A USB key of "known good" software taped to the driver station.
Github, Dropbox, Google Drive... none of them will help if you drop your laptop half-way through re-programming your robot, while you're standing in the queueing line.
With a flash drive and a helpful alliance partner, you at least stand a chance to set things right.
Jason
Exactly! We use our SVN on SourceForge as a development platform for merging code between multiple programmers as well as a backup. But we also keep a backup on flashdrive especially at competition. At an event, whenever a change is made to the code our lead programmer (student) deploys and tests the change... then it is my job as the programming mentor to make a backup of the code which is now on the robot onto my flashdrive. This ensures that we are never in doubt as to what code is currently on the robot. And it gives us immediately available access to our source code since we rarely have internet access at the venue.
So sorry to hear that 1432 learned this the hard way... it is never an easy lesson. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help out in your recovery process.
Good Luck!
jojoguy10
24-03-2015, 09:43
We use Labview backed up on our Google Drive storage.
As the main programming mentor, I've been wanting to learn how to use GitHub, but, I've heard, with Labview, it's really difficult.
If anyone else is using GitHub and Labview together, I would love to pick your brain (so to speak)!
Jean Tenca
24-03-2015, 10:04
We use Labview backed up on our Google Drive storage.
As the main programming mentor, I've been wanting to learn how to use GitHub, but, I've heard, with Labview, it's really difficult.
If anyone else is using GitHub and Labview together, I would love to pick your brain (so to speak)!
We use GitHub and Labview. If you're interested in learning more we'd be happy to give you more info and help you guys set things up. You can PM or email me :)
ArtemusMaximus
24-03-2015, 10:34
A USB key of "known good" software taped to the driver station.
Github, Dropbox, Google Drive... none of them will help if you drop your laptop half-way through re-programming your robot, while you're standing in the queueing line.
With a flash drive and a helpful alliance partner, you at least stand a chance to set things right.
Jason
The thing is it's not like it's "either, or". Any decent DRP (disaster recovery program) involves several types of backup. At the very minimum, back up your code every day of coding to USB or better yet to 2 or more USBs and give to different people.
We had this exact issue last year -- it was stored in a semi-public area during the school day and was swiped. The code is now backed up daily. If you're using Java I'm sure I could help you guys rebuild your code. PM me.
GreyingJay
24-03-2015, 10:54
As the main programming mentor, I've been wanting to learn how to use GitHub, but, I've heard, with Labview, it's really difficult.
If anyone else is using GitHub and Labview together, I would love to pick your brain (so to speak)!
GitHub lets you store and manage any kind of files -- text, binaries, pictures, whatever. If the files are plain text then you can view diffs and track changes between files a little more clearly, but it still works without.
The thing is it's not like it's "either, or". Any decent DRP (disaster recovery program) involves several types of backup. At the very minimum, back up your code every day of coding to USB or better yet to 2 or more USBs and give to different people.
Just like you don't show up to a competition with only one battery, and you probably bring spares of key parts like motors, breakers, etc. Always have several ways you can access your code in case something happens to your original.
I was a design judge for FLL last November and one team showed up with a laptop expecting to just pull down their presentation from their Google Drive. I let them squirm and panic for a minute and then asked "So boys.. what did you learn?" Their sheepish answer was "we should have downloaded a copy onto this laptop before we came in". Only then did I give them the wifi password to the school network.
I don't know if Team 1432 has any presence on Chief Delphi, but they are on Facebook, if you want to contact them that way.
https://www.facebook.com/team1432?ref=br_tf
I believe they have rec'd quite a few donations, a laptop or two, but are still missing a copy of Labview, according to their most recent FB post.
Hoping we get to see them at the Philomath (OR) competition later this week!
I wish the best for the team, it's a horrible situation to be in :/
... but just me or .. but the wording of the news article just made cringe really har....
I wish the best for the team, it's a horrible situation to be in :/
... but just me or .. but the wording of the news article just made cringe really har....
Yeah...didn't want to say it due to the sad nature of the post, but yeah. "All the codes", and don't forget "working hard to find the right code sequence." I marvel at how some people can still be this technologically illiterate in this modern day and age. I get that not everyone is a programer, but I think most people at least know the (somewhat) proper terminology.
one4robots
25-03-2015, 21:40
We Dropbox everything we do. I've heard great things about GitHub, but we've never taken the time to set it up.
We have used both Dropbox and Github. Github is well worth the switch due to the built in version control. We do still use Dropbox for CAD though.
We have used both Dropbox and Github. Github is well worth the switch due to the built in version control. We do still use Dropbox for CAD though.
For CAD we use GrabCAD now. It has an online web viewer for Solidworks files and has really good conflict control (1 conflicted copy this whole year) as well as version control. We used Dropbox two years ago and got tons of conflicted copies due to inexperienced people opening and saving files, especially when at home. It was livable and can work as long as precautions are taken, but I like GrabCAD more.
Sorry to hear this! If your team needs any help I am sure team 3019 would be more then willing to help! as for backing up the code use github and upload working code to a flash drive. That way you have a physical copy and a cloud copy. REMEMBER: The more places the better!
hope things end up all right!
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