What do you wish you knew about the new control system?
 

I'm working on a presentation to give at tommorow's remote kickoff in Rochester. It is about the control system. I was asked to do this on short notice (about 3 hours ago). The problem is that since I have not been involved with a team this year, my knowledge of the new control system only consists of what I have read in these forums.

I can obviously talk about the relays, radios, speed controllers, joysticks and competition port which will be helpful to the rookie teams attending, but are virtually the same as last years.

So, I'd like to talk about all the new features, but I have very little knowledge in them. I am of course reading the documentation, but I would appreciate it if people would point out what they feel are the most important new parts of the new control system. I'd also like to know, from those of you who have used the EDUbot, what gave you the most difficulty and wish you had known.

Programming is out of the scope of this workshop, as it is being covered in a different workshop.

Thanks for your help.

By the way, if Ken Wittleif or anyone else familier with the control system wants to come and help me out, I'd greatly appreciate it. PM me. Thanks :)

Re: What do you wish you knew about the new control system?
 

Just a question but does anyone know if it is possible to accidentally enable code protection on the microcontrollers or if they even have that feature?
Also, I really do not know what the watchdog timer is.
Another thing to disscuss are interrupts.

Re: What do you wish you knew about the new control system?
 

I'd definately go over the required backup battery......one more thing for teams to make sure to connect,
setting the team number (must teather to the OI, no DIP switches to set on the RC),
TTL serial port (maybe go over the basics of hooking up a link to a secondary microcontroller, etc),
go over why some PCs might require the use of the "PROG" button
hooking up interrupts

as for the OI:
the "disable dipswitch"
the competition port pin guide
Dashboard port specs
better go over binary team # for those that might have forgotten
Competition control LED
disappearance of the "user mode"
channel dipswitch