Re: Battery powered raspberry pi
 

I do think it is time for a definition of COTS from FIRST. I'll get my guys to toss it in to Q&A shortly.

We are in a day & age of 3-D printers and plug & play H/W system development (Arduino et al). Will volume matter? Can the 2CAN from Cross The Road be done for less than $220? Easily, probably at a profitable price and that's why they are out of stock.

What really gets my goat about the CAN thing is that the bloody processor buried down in the FRC cRIO (I & II) has multiple CAN interfaces, but we can't get to them.

The next generation controller gets really interesting, with the controller cores buried directly in the FPGA part. I don't suppose they'll let us program those gates, either.

Just a little rant :)
TJ

Re: Battery powered raspberry pi
 

What's wrong with the definition FIRST already gave?

Re: Battery powered raspberry pi
 

Well, one thing is that we have no clue if a COTS (unmodified and off-the-shelf) battery pack will be allowed. Some people think yes it is because it is COTS. Others think no because it is an extra power source ;)

That is truely one thing that FRC will need to clarify to fix all these loose ending.

Until then, before actually putting the RPi on the bot, take out the SD card, run WinDiskImager and create an image of the card. That will save your life in case of a failure! Just prop the card back into the computer and write that image to the card, which you know works!

For code, just create a web server on the driver station. Have a BASH script download all the code every time the RPi boots, and recompile it to make sure it is current, or compare the downloaded code to the old code to see if the downloaded code is newer, same or older!

I think a simple Hash generator and checker should do the job.
Also, remember that a lot of us will not be using the RPi,but something with many times the power. The RPi is only good for regular DIY hacking and development, not for performance. Also, I don't think it has OpenCL support :(. However, I may be outdated with that because I haven't used my Pi in a while!

Re: Battery powered raspberry pi
 

On the contrary, we have plenty of clue. R31 makes it perfectly clear that "Batteries integral to and part of a COTS computing device or self-contained camera" are the only exception. A separate battery back, COTS or otherwise, is not going to pass inspection.

Re: Battery powered raspberry pi
 

How is a battery pack any different than a single D battery.
Think about it: the D battery is COTS.
You don't fill it and if it's alkaline you don't have to charge it out of the box.

So since the FIRST rules (as pointed out by Alan while I posted above) only let COTS computing devices with a manufacturer provided battery on the robot (as an integral part) on the field you have less choices.

The idea earlier about the external removable battery so it's not on the robot during the match is a good thing to ask about.

Capacitors skate this.

However FIRST has been quite specific and I think pretty cool about even suggesting that someone outside of FIRST can make a COTS device with the integrated battery and use it on the official field. This makes it possible to fix this and bypass the approval process that could be ripe with other issues.

So really the question is: is there really enough interest in FIRST and elsewhere to fix this mobile robot issue?
If there is then the issues are strictly normal for any business or start-up.
Course I really do think it won't be ready for this season.
So if someone wants to tackle this problem - even if FIRST bans COTS computing devices next year - it would interesting.
The point is to inspire a business in the general sense regardless of whether FIRST buys from it.

Re: Battery powered raspberry pi
 

On the topic of goats ...

The Freescale part does indeed have CAN capabilities, and a certain CEO also really really wanted the CAN capabilities to be exposed in the industrial version of the product. But release deadlines don't always allow things like that to happen. For industry, CAN is also available through FPGA IP and a module, but this would have cut into other FPGA features. It was discussed and the group decision was to achieve CAN via serial or enet bridge. It certainly isn't ideal, and this is far improved in the new controller.

The FPGA of roboRIO is reprogrammable. I'd personally love to see well-mentored teams play with it in the offseason. Good ideas from this could be incorporated in the official image. At the moment, we don't have a good technical ability to combine the closed and open portions of the IP into the same FPGA. Safety is the top priority, so it is expected to remain closed for FRC robots until we are able to do both.

Greg McKaskle