Nullifier Button: Yay or Nay

[IisMathwizard]

Our team came up with the idea to make a nullifier button that would, when pressed, stop all joystick and dashboard control. It's similar to the stop button but doesn't permanetly stop communications. Its a button on the joystick that when pressed activates case structures that will set x and y axis values for arcade drive to 0 and also 0 for the arm motor. My question: Is a nullifier button allowed? or is the stop button only allowed.
The objective of the nullifier button is to allow us to temporarily stop during a match to fix any "quick fix" problems we may have. Also, it will definately help out during testing if i made any screw-ups in the code.

[AdamHeard]

There would be nothing illegal about this; to the field, it is the same as any other drive input/command.

We use this during software testing, as we hate having to deal with the actual stop button.

[IisMathwizard]

Our team came up with the idea to make a nullifier button that would, when pressed, stop all joystick and dashboard control. It's similar to the stop button but doesn't permanetly stop communications. It's a button on the joystick that when pressed activates case structures that will set x and y axis values for arcade drive to 0 and also 0 for the arm motor. My question: Is a nullifier button allowed? or is the stop button only allowed.
The objective of the nullifier button is to allow us to temporarily stop during a match to fix any "quick fix" problems we may have. Also, it will definately help out during testing if i made any screw-ups in the code that could create mechanical or structural damage.

[MagiChau]

I believe this is allowed, because this is all programming, not an actual physical device you brought in.

[alexhenning]

I don't see why you wouldn't be allowed to in addition to the stop button. The purpose of the stop button is safety, but there's nothing limiting what you can do with controls, as long as it doesn't cause your robot to do something illegal.

[Dkt01]

A good idea, but you may want to disable this for competition. I could see drivers becoming angry if they accidentally pressed a button at the start of teleop and the robot became unresponsive.

Maybe an alternate idea would be an "enable button". The robot would only operate as long as the driver holds down a button.

[whytheheckme]

Of course you can create a local e-stop (I'd recommend it!) It's really great for testing in the shop (especially before the days of the included e-stop button), and you're right, once you hit the button on the field, you're done for the match.

Jacob

[Alan Anderson]

I'm not aware of any rules that prevent you from using Driver Station controls to do anything you want to do.

During testing, why not just use the space bar to disable the robot when necessary? It's just like clicking the "Disable" button on the screen.

[GaryVoshol]

Threads that were started with almost identical posts have been combined.

[dtengineering]

We actually programmed our custom stop button to activate a PID control loop to keep the robot in one position. If someone bumped into us, the encoders would measure how far we moved and try to move us back into position.

In pre c-rio days it was a handy feature when doing public demos... you could let a kid drive your robot while a team member kept their hand over the stop button.

Jason