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-   -   Why the sudden burst of code postings? (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140794)

MrRoboSteve 02-01-2016 17:13

Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
You might have noticed that there's a sudden burst of teams posting links to their prior year's code and CAD drawings on Chief Delphi. Wondering why? Read on.

R13 of the 2015 Rules states:
Software and mechanical/electrical designs created before Kickoff are only permitted if the source files (complete information sufficient to produce the design) are available publicly prior to Kickoff.
So, if you have that great robot vision program from previous years, or that crazy 5 CIM continuously variable gearbox from last year's bot, and want to use it on this year's robot, you need to publish the design.

What does publish mean? The examples in the rules all say:
  • post it in a generally accessible public forum
  • make the code available to all Teams
A story. Last year at a competition I was asked to consult on a robot's control system issue. We spent quite a bit of time going through the source code of the robot to see what the issue was. Reading the source code, it was clear to me that the code represented many years worth of work. I took a note of the team's number because I was interested in reviewing the code later at home.

After the competition, I took a look around for the team's code, and wasn't able to find it online anywhere. That's not right.

The concept behind R13 is that the work product -- the robot and its code -- represents the work of the current team. Requiring sharing of designs and source code helps level the playing field and increases the quality of robots from all teams. It deliberately reduces the (big) advantage that veteran teams have over new ones.

Finally, a personal note. I love reading team's robot code, and would love to see more published code to look at.

So, there you go. Publishing your code and designs = good.

Cel Skeggs 02-01-2016 18:36

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Here's an idea: perhaps we should start an index of source code releases, with info like GitHub Links and the most interesting parts of each release.

A publicly-visible Google Sheet could do the job, or maybe someone wants to make a website?

Kenny Cheung 02-01-2016 19:11

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Would making CAD files downloadable on your team's website (in an accessible place like a Resources tab or something) be sufficient to satisfy R13? Do you have to advertise it in a post on a public forum like Chief Delphi?

EmileH 02-01-2016 19:14

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Colby Skeggs (Post 1515936)
Here's an idea: perhaps we should start an index of source code releases, with info like GitHub Links and the most interesting parts of each release.

A publicly-visible Google Sheet could do the job, or maybe someone wants to make a website?

I like this idea a lot. I can create this if others are interested.

GeeTwo 02-01-2016 19:48

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Do you think we could get TBA to provide links to teams' software repositories? (And while we're at it, CAD folders and engineering notebooks)?

joelg236 02-01-2016 20:16

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by EmileH (Post 1515962)
I like this idea a lot. I can create this if others are interested.

Yes please! Preferably on github to keep it simple and easy to collaborate? (similar to the "awesome ____" ones)

Cel Skeggs 02-01-2016 21:22

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by joelg236 (Post 1515995)
Yes please! Preferably on github to keep it simple and easy to collaborate? (similar to the "awesome ____" ones)

Here we go!

FRC Software Releases

It's pretty bare-bones, but it should be possible to iterate quickly to add more teams to the list! Also, there will be more than just a single Chief Delphi link for each of them shortly.

cjl2625 02-01-2016 22:16

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Colby Skeggs (Post 1516020)
Here we go!

FRC Software Releases

It's pretty bare-bones, but it should be possible to iterate quickly to add more teams to the list! Also, there will be more than just a single Chief Delphi link for each of them shortly.

I just posted my own team's code, if you'd like to include it on the list:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=140820

Fauge7 02-01-2016 22:49

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Glad to see our code was posted, Its pretty cool, wouldn't recommend to use it though

MrRoboSteve 02-01-2016 23:01

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenny Cheung (Post 1515957)
Would making CAD files downloadable on your team's website (in an accessible place like a Resources tab or something) be sufficient to satisfy R13? Do you have to advertise it in a post on a public forum like Chief Delphi?

Here are the two examples from R13 in last year's manual (PDF page 35).
EXAMPLE 4: A different Team develops a similar solution during the fall, and plans to use the developed software on their competition ROBOT. After completing the software, they post it in a generally accessible public forum and make the code available to all Teams. Because they have made their software publicly available before Kickoff, they can use it on their ROBOT.

EXAMPLE 5: A Team develops a transmission during the fall. After completing the project, they publish the CAD files on a generally accessible public forum and make them available to all Teams. Because they have made the design publicly available before Kickoff, they can use the design to create an identical transmission, fabricated after Kickoff, for use on their 2015 ROBOT.
My reading of this is that "make available" is posting it on your site, and that posting on a "generally accessible public forum" means CD or the FIRST forums. The other teams that are posting are thinking something similar, and I've had in person conversations with other teams that read this the same way.

Finally, I'll point out that the ultimate decisionmaker on this would be a robot inspector at the event.

GeeTwo 02-01-2016 23:05

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fauge7 (Post 1516042)
Glad to see our code was posted, Its pretty cool, wouldn't recommend to use it though

Having worked for the US Navy for the past 27.5 years, let me quote somebody who's been working there longer than me:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garry
It doesn't have to make sense; it's the NAVY, it's a rule.

The code-posting rule doesn't have anything prohibiting the posting of obfuscated code, not to mention "as-is" code. The requirement (the past few years) has simply been that the code is publicly available before kickoff. As far as I know, no one intentionally obfuscates their code, but there is certainly a significant quantity of code published that is "not ready for sharing".

It's FRC. It's a rule. Work with it.

hardcopi 03-01-2016 11:47

2959's Code is available
 
As always our code is available at: http://www.robotarians.org/information/programming/

Though we are working on creating a release thread about one portion of our Labview code. Our students last year created Roboscript. An autonomous scripting language that can be changed during the queuing line or even while your robot is being set up. :)

The post will go into more detail, but you run it like this:

drive(50%, 2s);

(this is an example that probably wouldn't work, but it is similiar to this). This would tell it to drive forward at 50% power for 2 seconds. The new version 2.02 allows the programmer to do things like "if sensor2 is active then do this else do that". It is similar to javascript in it's syntax.

Cel Skeggs 03-01-2016 13:30

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by hardcopi (Post 1516135)
As always our code is available at: http://www.robotarians.org/information/programming/

Though we are working on creating a release thread about one portion of our Labview code. Our students last year created Roboscript. An autonomous scripting language that can be changed during the queuing line or even while your robot is being set up. :)

The post will go into more detail, but you run it like this:

drive(50%, 2s);

(this is an example that probably wouldn't work, but it is similiar to this). This would tell it to drive forward at 50% power for 2 seconds. The new version 2.02 allows the programmer to do things like "if sensor2 is active then do this else do that". It is similar to javascript in it's syntax.

You'll probably want to post a new thread - this thread isn't for posting your code.

BBray_T1296 03-01-2016 16:51

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Paraphrasing somebody's comment from a year or two ago,

If I sat at the side of the road with a flash drive handing out my code and CAD to any passerby who wanted it, does that count as publicly available?

EmileH 03-01-2016 17:05

Re: Why the sudden burst of code postings?
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by BBray_T1296 (Post 1516222)
Paraphrasing somebody's comment from a year or two ago,

If I sat at the side of the road with a flash drive handing out my code and CAD to any passerby who wanted it, does that count as publicly available?

Have you (or any other team) done this?


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