Programming old robots

[Hieb]

I recently inherited several old competition robots and would like to use them as I start a robotics club (and future FRC team) at my current school. What I don't have is any of the programming software for either the older IFI controllers or the C-RIOs. Any suggestions on software I could use (preferably free or relatively cheap) to provide at least basic functionality would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Mark McLeod]

To begin with you can just keep the programs that are already on them, for driving and mechanisms they'll have workable controls already setup. (2014 robots?)

If your purpose is to teach programming, then the software for the IFI controllers will depend on the year/model, but you can cobble together freeware/student versions/old IFI sw to make a working C environment. There are a few threads on doing that, and we can help.

The cRIO controllers could be programmed in free Java tools, but the cRIO and your programming environment will have to have compatible setups for that. If you have both 2009 and 2010 robots, then they could already be imaged for Java if the team originally programmed in that, but they might have different generations of cRIO images, and would need different WPI libraries to match. Probably meaning you need to connect with another local team long enough to get your cRIO's imaged for Java, then take and freeze the current Java WPI libraries to use in the future with those cRIOs.

[plnyyanks]

]There are a few threads on doing that, and we can help.
Start by looking at these threads:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33473
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97363
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88068

And read around this site to learn about the control system itself.
http://www.ifirobotics.com/

I know you can get the software to program the IFI control system for free (I found everything I needed). It's all out there somewhere. As always, we can answer questions if needed. Good luck.

[Hieb]

Thank you for the information. It's been several years and I forgot how easy (and useful) the search feature is here.

Between IFI controllers, cRIOs, VEX, EDU, and LEGO NXT I've got a lot of options, but also a lot of work trying to get the various platforms running.

[byteit101]

If you are looking for IFI system stuff, I have two useful things: "IFIclipse" plugins, and ZomB
The IFIclipse plusings are plugins for eclipse that I created to bring the IFI toolchain to eclipse, so you can program the IFI systems from any eclipse-supported platform. I'm not sure why its down, but the eclipse plugin site is at http://ificlipse.thecatattack.org/, and there are a couple of other things you need, I'll try to dig up my notes on them if you want it.
ZomB also recently gained support for IFI debugging, simply do a printf("name: %f\n, value); and set the ZomB source to Serial, download the code, keep the serial cable connecting you to the program port, and ZomB will detect the controls.
I'm going to be releasing an update (hopefully) later today, but the FF project is at http://firstforge.wpi.edu/sf/projects/zombdashboard (and obviously works with the cRIO system also)