opps
 

ok, so i read it quickly and missed the word "chargers". OPPS!

*blames mixup on half a bottle of vanilla coke and lack of sleep*

Tom, if you'd of read any of the team forum notes you'd of known already that FIRST was thinking about making non-rookie teams buy the charger, joysticks, and compressor this year to defray the cost of runnig the competition.

Do you think now with the regional Woodie Flowers award they would let a college mentor win it?

Compressors
I suspect that teams which have not used their pneumatics and which have saved their compressors would be willing to trade for motors, speed controllers, etc. There are probably 2000 unused compressors gathering dust in storage (assuming that the compressor has been the same for the past three years).

Joysticks
Since we can't modify the kit joysticks anyway, what good are they? We were already planning to do a fully custom OI this year because of that rule.

C/C++
I hope that FIRST supplies us with the C compiler for the PIC and that it is a good compiler. Otherwise, there goes another $500. [OK, I was just looking for an excuse to get a C compiler for the PIC.]

BTW, does anyone know if egcs can be set up for the PIC?

Battery Chargers
Well, we're all set for battery chargers. I've been giving them away to save room. But, teams that only have the 2003 and the piece of crap 2002 battery charger might wish for one more.

Eligibility
I almost started a pool to see when the eligibility requirements would be out and how late into the pre-season it will be before registration for Nationals is open. I'm glad that they're "play-testing" the rules before releasing them. I just hope the delay won't take them past the second regional registration deadline. That wreaked havoc last year (regionals filled up and then emptied).

Anyway, good for FIRST! It looks like they're really moving in the right direction. All of these changes (especially the RC) are for the best.

I never saw why a college mentor couldn't have won it before. I know some really dedicated college mentors out there. I'm not quite sure if they reached the national Woody Flowers Award level however.

Matt

You all can go out and get PIC ANT C compiler for the Microchip PICs right now, and you can download it for free!!

http://www.picant.com/c2c/c.html

Random question: does anyone have any idea if programming in PBASIC is still an option? Does FIRST want us to switch to C/C++ or is it optional?

PICAnt
 

I have also worked with PICAnt in the past, and it is an good compiler. However, it doesn't support any of the PICs that operate at 10 MIPS. Microchip has its own development tool, MPLAB, which is outstanding and very well dosumented and supported, although a little hard to work with originally. You might also consider HI-TECH's PICC lite, which is free and a very good compiler, despite the DOS interface. There is a great book in the Robot DNA Series called Programming Robot Controllers by Myke Predko, which comes with PICC Lite, MPLAB, and explains how to program PICs covering everything from the basics, to how to use interrupts, and even how to throw in some simple assembly. I highly recommend it to all of the teams that have not worked with PICs before.

PBASIC
 

It might be possible to still use PBASIC, depending on the PIC. Just googling PBASIC PIC compiler, I found one such compiler at http://www.melabs.com/products/pbc.htm.
However, it only supports a couple of processors (the PICs that operate at 10 MIPS are the PIC18 family, which it doesn't support.) However, this is just the result of a quick search, and I'm sure there are many other compilers out there for programming PICs in basic, just probably not in PBASIC.

Compressor, batteries, chargers, joysticks.....

If I'm not mistaken we were always instructed in the past to use only parts from the current building year, including batteries. In this new situation, we're allowed to use past parts of these four items. What I'm thinking is that there are teams who haven't been using all of their batteries, chargers, compressors and joysticks over the past years and have some extras lying around. I'm willing to bet that teams who are in need will find it really easy to find some one through CD who is willing to let them have/trade/borrow any of those items. I remember the last time I visited Team Hammond, a veteran several years now, they had a whole table in the practice room full of batteries and chargers. I'm sure there are lots of teams like that, so I suggest that anyone who feels they are at a great disadvantage from this change to create a thread asking for some team to help you out.

Re: PICAnt
 

I was just looking at PIC C compilers, and found the HI-TECH compiler. The free version compiles for many of the 12, 16 and 17 series processors. I believe you have to pay for the verson which supports the 18 series, which, as vladg12 pointed out, is the only series which supports 10 MIPS.

Their website is http://www.htsoft.com

No one ever said batteries! Chargers people, chargers. Just read. They never said we are not getting new batteries.

Nah it is not that expensive. If you are really cheap you could program a pic with under 20 dollars. Im a happy boy. I have probably 80 dollars worth of books on the pic microcontroller. Oddly enough that amounts to two books.

I wonder what specific pic they will be using. *eyes go starry thinking about DSPic*

Sorry about saying batteries. It's chargers. Chargers. But still, you could ask over teams for chargers.

heh, no biggie about the joysticks. I mean, besides the fact that we are a second year team and will get them anyway, they are easily destroyed : I have the grip from one on my desk, while the base wallows away somewhere . . got broken) but EASILY and CHEAPLY replaced. Joysticks of that nature can be had for about 10 dollers . . . only hard part is findind them with calibration wheels, and even that shouldn't be too hard.

Haveing four of one kind of large motors (four drills or four chips) would be awesome, but I doubt that it will happen (we can always hope).

The controller change is cool because the new one uses C, and that means our programmer can finally use his native language.

It sounds like we will all recieve four more victors and four more spikes, so this should not be an issue.

It sounds like mostly good changes are happening, with a few setbacks (no new chargers and compressors and whatnot) but it doesn't sound like that big of a problem.