2004 Robot Controller
 

Ok, the 2004 EDU-Robot controllers are out…but are these going to be the FIRST Robot controllers as well? I fell pretty stupid asking this question, but I have not been able to find a straight up answer for the new 2004 FIRST Robot controller. Please, no rumors here, I am trying to get electrical connectors for the “new” controller AKA EDU-Robot. Thanks a lot! -Matt

These will not e the controllers we will use for the actual competition. There is a comparison of the EduBot controller and the full controller here: http://www.innovationfirst.com/FIRSTRobotics/edu-rc.htm

Follow Up
 

Thanks for the link! I didn’t even see that specs sheet :ahh: Anyway, the new controller will be the same size, just the internals will be different. Excellent! 7 weeks until kickoff, can't wait and good luck too all the teams

Re: Follow Up
 

Where did you get that information?

Re: Follow Up
 

Not quite....

Size (W x L x H)
Full Size: 6" x 7" x 0.9"
EDU-RC: 3.4" x 4.6" x 0.75"

Externals such as inputs are different, too.

If you're not 100% sure of something, please look at the link supplied by Rickertsen ( http://www.innovationfirst.com/FIRSTRobotics/edu-rc.htm ) before you comment on this.

I think he meant that the 2004 RC will be the same size as previous year's RCs.

Yeah, thats right, the 2004 RC has the same dimensions as the 2003 model, the 2004 EDU-robot is smaller than the 2003 as well.

I heard that there´s like a thousand pages of documentation for this year RC.

Really freaks me out.

It would make sense since they basically changed the whole controller. They changed the language, the PWM's (they have 4 fast PWM's now) and many other things.

The one thing I don't like is that they are keeping the same OI, so whatever your transmit rate is (the 28 ms...I think) is the same rate you will transmit this year. That basically eliminates the whole use of the fast PWM's (except for auton mode)

-Greg the Great

Not true. The fast PWM's are quite valuable for feedback loops even in user control mode. A lot of the latency in feedback mechanisms such as crab wheel positioning & arm angle is in how often the motor speed is updated.

Think about it this way. The driver of a crab style robot doesn't change the desired direction of the wheels every 28 ms, and as far as the driver is concerned the delay between moving the stick & the robot getting the signal 28 ms later is negligible. The big problem is when the driver moves the stick and the wheels overshoot their target or when start oscillating back & forth. This is where the fast PWMs come in. Analog & digital inputs on the robot are updated every program loop, so we can take the driver's desired target (which is constant for 28ms) and the fast updating crab position and use those to control our feedback loop. Now we get to update our desired motor speed every time through the program cycle and the fast PWMs allow us to send that value to the speed controllers. Does that make sense?

Mike

Where have they said the same OIs are being used?
I haven't seen anything directly stating that. They Do still have links up to the "current" OIs manuals, but that doesn't mean much. They may upgrade it so it does have a higher transfer rate, and It may not use 900MHz radios anymore (Although I'm not sure why they'd switch) I doubt that they're going to use the STAMPs that are in the OI now to continue with next year's PIC based system. They'll probably bump the stamps to a PIC as well. Just my guess.
But when they say new control "system", that to me is different from new "RC". It also wouldn't make too much sense that the User_Routines.C Processes every 17ms if they're going to keep the transfer rate at 28ms. The main user_routines is designed for user drive mode, and it would mean every 2 cycles you would process the new data, thus your actual transfer time is more in the range of 34ms (for output), and would be a slowdown from this past year's system. It doesn't make sense.

Pure speculation: I doubt they'll change the radios to be higher than 9600bps. My reasoning is that 9600 is "fast enough". The data from the OI gets to the robot in a short enough amount of time that it's not a noticeable delay to the operator. Sure, we'd all love to be able to pump back more data to the OI, but I doubt that's a big concern for IFI. Radios that run more than 9600bps are expensive. If anything, I'd guess that they'd change to radios that allowed more channels. They were getting really close to using all 40 channels at Houston last year, and that increases the risk that two different robot's signals will interfere with each other.
I'm not sure how this rumor got started (and I've seen it mentioned before in other threads), but the OI doesn't have a BASIC Stamp in it, and to my knowledge it never has. Think about it - why would they put a stamp in the OI? Stamps are considerably more expensive than other embedded processors, are a whole lot slower, and use a rather clumsy programming language.
Page 10 of the 2004 Programming Reference Guide actually says that Process_Data_From_Master_uP() runs at 17ms on the EDUbot only. It specifically states that it still runs at 26ms on the real RC.

Quote:
I'm not sure how this rumor got started (and I've seen it mentioned before in other threads), but the OI doesn't have a BASIC Stamp in it, and to my knowledge it never has. Think about it - why would they put a stamp in the OI? Stamps are considerably more expensive than other embedded processors, are a whole lot slower, and use a rather clumsy programming language.

The OI does indeed contain at least one basic stamp. The RC contains 3. If I remember correctly the OI contains more than one. There are (or were) a total of 9 stamps throughout the entire control system up until now. This information used to be posted on IFI's site under the 2003 RC page, but has been removed for 2004. I'm trying to find my old documentation where it shows a map of all the stamps.
I was just saying that the radio was an idea, I hadn't actually heard any talk of it. But the fact that the new eduRC doesn't run on 900MHz radio gave some speculation to people that they might be switching to something new. I personally think they'll stick with the current radios, and as you said, may increase the channels. Especially with the new number of teams this year.

Quote:
Page 10 of the 2004 Programming Reference Guide actually says that Process_Data_From_Master_uP() runs at 17ms on the EDUbot only. It specifically states that it still runs at 26ms on the real RC.

Thank you for clearing that up for me. I think that if any changes are made, that they'll speed up the feedback. The dashboard program is now uncontinued, so it makes one wonder if they're coming up with a new method of feedback, or if they're updating the dashboard software for the new system. Either way, I'd like to see more be done with feedback. I know last year we were working on a system of ultrasonic sensors, and we worked on a 3D program to run on the laptop we had. The program would take the ultrasonic feedback (among other sensors) and show the robots position on the field, as well as putting up transparent "walls" where it received feedback. It didn't get too far though, since the hardware didn't like if much. I think if IFI made things like that a little easier, It would be a good improvement.
I do like the OI as is...It just seems like some minor adjustments could be made.

Here you go:

http://innovationfirst.com/FIRSTRobotics/system.htm

Quote:
Looking to burn rubber in competition? Take a peek under the “hood” of any FIRST robot, and you’ll find an Innovation First Control System. Whoa- are you seeing this? Ten microcontrollers. Scores of analog and digital inputs. Twenty-four motor outputs. And a user programmable processor for enhanced robot control. This bad boy even feeds critical information from the robot back to the pilots. In other words, you can put the pedal to the metal any way you like it. Sweet. This state-of-the-art control system was originally designed for the FIRST competition, but it’s red-lining with educational opportunity. Imagine what it can do for you.
(PS, Now I know what's fueled IFI to update their site... :D)

That's one location where they mention it. I think in one of the old guides they have a map of all the Stamps in the system. There's 3 on the RC for processing the program, at least one on the OI. There's at least one in each modem...I think...
I've got to find that diagram, I know I've seen it before. I'll just post back when I find it...

::scavenges through notebooks, web pages and junk::

BTW-I think that the MCs in the radios are PIC's, Right? Maybe the OI already runs on them, and that's one reason why IFI chose them. Just a thought...

Here, take a look at this. It shows the inside of the OI and RC, and you can clearly see in the pictures that there is only 1 Stamp between the two of them (in the RC). The rest of the work is done by PICs.
I think this is what's throwing you off course. They do talk about having multiple microcontrollers in the system, however they never indicate that they're all Stamps. In fact, as I mentioned before, the only Stamp is the user-controlled one. Everything else is done with Microchip PICs (hence the reason they upgraded the user CPU to a PIC - they're already familiar with it).

Thanks for the clarification and cool pic!
I thought that may have been the reason that they chose the PICs...
So, if there are 4 total in the RC and OI, does that mean each radio has 3? Just wondering...

First of all, I'd like to thank you for those pictures. I can't tell whether you're responsible for them, or not, so I'll thank you, and whoever took them, and whoever hosts them. I don't think I've ever seen them before, and even though they're deprecated, at this point, they're still very interesting.

Second, I just thought it was slightly humorous that InnovationFirst would choose to take the base components of a Basic Stamp, and license the programming software (the Basic Stamp IDE/Tokenizer/programmer) from Parallax. This would indicate that PBASIC was, at the time, considered better than any alternative languages (although there're other factors in such a decision). The Basic Stamp 2SX consists of maybe $15-20 worth of electrical components, so when you buy a Stamp, you're mostly paying for the right to use PBASIC.

I think that the main reason for choosing the Stamp line of processors at the time the initial IFI system was developed was mainly that a Stamp 2 was in the old control system that we used prior to IFI...

On a somewhat different topic, has anyone thought there may be more than just cost driving IFI to not have the Edu RC interface with the OI and Full Size Radios? It's been discussed here before that IFI has tested a new, smaller, radio system for use in years past(I know they were actually having some people try it in 2002 at Epcot), as well as possibility of an updated OI(remember the discussion about the OI with PlayStation controller ports?)...We'll just have to wait until January to know for sure...as an interesting aside to this, note that on IFI's documentation page(http://www.innovationfirst.com/first...umentation.htm), the only active link for the OI is the Installation Info, which is basically just a CAD drawing showing you where the mounting holes are...

Re: 2004 Robot Controller
 

Actually you are paying for assembly. Surface mount technology is rather expensive and complicated to assemble.