What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

arn't they making it too easy?

theyre practicly handing us the code.

oh wait... they are handing us the code!

i dont like this, but i might not see the whole picture yet...

-Leav

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Making your own wheel turn counters and all your own encoders and suff is half the fun. Heck we were excllent with our programming last year. But now all you have to do is say left pi over 2 radians. This is sersiouly gonna be too easy.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Well, I think they are handing us code because my thougts are that the game is going to need a lot of mechanical work because they are almost handing us all the needed code.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

We had a scripting language that worked exactly like that last year. It took us a few weeks to refine it, but it worked nicely. I think everyone will be happy with the simplicity this allows - except those of us that developed it independently ;) (once we finished the graphical interface, we would've made it more public anyway)

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the impression most of us got last year about the IR sensors and other small electronics. However, it turned out that IR was one of the least used features of the Kit because they were a pain in the butt to successfully code, especially when the math capabilities of the controller were less than stellar.

The scripting language will mean that MANY more teams will use the sensors instead of doing something like dead reckoning.

I for one welcome our new scripting overlords. ;)

Dave :D

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think thats what we may try this year... a graphical setup...

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

It will help us with some aspects of the programming yes but this will allow everyone to have an autonomous mode. Which can be good for rookie teams but still, making your own language is half the fun

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

This is going to make the basic programming very simple but I also allows teams to do alot more than before. Personally I am looking forward to seeing exactly how far we can push it. Also those of you who are good at programming can extend the ability of the scripting software so you can use it in years to come.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I can't say that I mind too much, what with me being the most experienced programmer on the team, other than two of the mentors, and not being an expert on it myself. I think that with this, we won't have to worry so much about how to make the program work, but what we want it to do. But of course, if you like a challenge, I suppose you could just write all the scripts yourself.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Yes programing abilities will be greatly extended...might be intersting, might be newbish

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think I found the software page:

http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/C_help.htm

Dave

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I like it. It gives you more time to come up with complex situations rather than spending a week figuring out mathematical complexities. Plus, you can worry less now about whether or not your robot ACTUALLY drives perfectly straight. It also makes life easier for the rookie teams that may not have the knowledge they need for previous FIRST programming. And, like Dave said, it let's teams mingle, trade, and combine code for an even more astounding autonomous period!

I remember watching 67 last year at Nationals and wanting to know how they wrote all their coding. This enables the students that don't REALLY speak programming to understand everything that's going on. In essence, it gives everyone the ability to be a programmer.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

This is real life. Nobody is going to pay you to write something thats already been done a hundred times. The challenge is to take all of this pre-existing code and do something useful with it. Believe me, I understand what you're saying. Do you honestly think that NASA could have put those rovers on Mars if they wrote everything from scratch? Take what they give you, study it, and extend it. Its great to want to do it yourself, but while you're coding and testing your math library in week three you could be refining some mind blowing autonomous code.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Guys, you havent even seen the new software. Wait until your kits get in, and try out the (new?) IDE.

All I have to say is.. new program stuff is frickin sweet.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think they're giving us a hand with the programming because this is a strategy-based game. The robots and the programming don't need to be all that complicated, but with six robots and only two minutes, strategy is everything.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Those jerks, trying to help rookies write autonomous code!

Edit: I'm feeling really, really depressed at the number of people taking this seriously.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I personally disagree with the decision to hand people the complex code in easy to use pieces. This might be because I am a little biased because I spent countless hours working on my own PID drive systems, and now it all seems useless. But, as for people saying that it mirrors real life in the fact that you are never going to make something from scratch, then you are right. But the fact is if you tried to mirror real life in every aspect, IMO, you would be drowning out one of the key factors that makes FIRST fun. In real life, they already have designs for articulation arms, or drive trains, but does FIRST give u them. No. So you can not apply the argument of saying it mirrors real life because you would run in to that problem.

I also think the argument that this mirrors real life can be discredited in another way also. Programming is a large part of engineering, if it was not they would not do it in FIRST. The idea is that you take some things that are already made and you build on it to complete the task. The code it takes to accompish the task does not just magically fall out of the sky, someone had to write it. I think a better approach would be to maybe have some very basic code to start rookie teams off and some really hard code that would be impossible for the average High School kid to figure out. This still allows room for complex problem solving that the programmers have to deal with. You want to be pushing the limits of technology by figuring out these problems.

There are more reasons I think this code library was not the best idea. Lets say last year a freshman joined the robotics team and fell in love with the programming aspect. Using C, a language used in real life all of the time will give the kid a better understanding of what the career of being a computer scientist would be life. He gets to walk in the realm of real life programming scenarios. Now with this new competition, a freshman can come into the team, and they may get a false sense of what programming really is. They may get an overly simplified look of what really is programming. All they see is the beginning instructions (Go forward, go backward, turn pi radians) and the end result. They have no idea what goes on in between.

I guess my feels can all be summed up in the fact that I think that though you are helping out rookie teams and leveling the playing field and that is great, but isn't this putting more focus on the competition itself and not what you learn on the way. This gives rookies a chance to compete against veterans, but will they ever really learn the insides of a PID loop or what interrupts are. If it was not for having to figure all of the code out for myself, I know I wouldn't have a clue either.

These are just my opinions, I don't know the outcome, or how this will work out, and I don't claim to.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I Love the new stuff they gave us. I'm pretty decent at programming but there are things that still allude me. I plan on reviewing the pid code to see exactly how it works. Now i will be able to get a handle on the concept. I will be looking at code that already works and not trying blindly to make code from scratch. If you know how it works why do you need to type the keys yourself?

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I completely agree that the FIRST handing us all the code is a bad idea. It truely does take the focus off of learning a skill like programming. If I were a rookie trying to learn programming I would not learn much if I new all I had to do was use a supplied scripting language to tell the robot to travel 30mm and turn 4pi radians. I am also upset because I have been working on writting a scripting language and gui-frontend for non-programmers on my team to edit and write code for auotonomuos mode.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

From what I understand you can still write the code the way you have in the past. For instance, if your PID loop works better than theirs, then use yours instead! The graphical interface may be able to take advantage of the scripting languange and become even more robust.

There are two parts to this discussion. First, those who love to code for the sake of coding (yes, it's fun, challenging, frustrating and rewarding) and those who code for the sake of accomplishing a task! Different goals and both can now be accomplished.

Those who have implemented a cool feature in the past that may fit into a scripting language by all means write the new command so others can implement it their code; as a scripting element. This is just plain good software engineering; software re-use and abstraction are the two main principals that come to mind.

Now is the time for the hot-shot coders to step up and really show off their stuff and the wet behind the ears coders to pay close attention to whats going on!

Cheers,
Sean

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I dont really think that them giving us a scripting engine for the robot is a bad thing. It helps with some of the most rudamentary tasks, but from what i have seen they are not giving you anything that will help you score any points in autonomous mode. They are leaving all the more advanced stuff for us to do, while giving us a few easy commands like "move" and "wait" so that we dont have to reinvent the wheel. It also gives newbs an example of what they can do.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

yea it seems too easy but maybe with this much of the code written for us we will be able to do more extensive more complicated programs becaus ewe dont have to worry about the more simple stuff
We will see

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think that FIRST is doing new teams a huge favor. I can see the arguement that it's too easy but I think that this is an unfair statement made by elder teams. It's the sort of idea that if I had to be beaten up to learn something then everyone else should too. But I see this as giving new teams an oppurtunity to actually build a decent robot. Will it teach them? Yes I think so and then next year they'll come back and they'll say, we can do it in this scripted language, now let's try and do it in C, let's see what happens. The way I see it First isn't ditching C, they're just giving an alternate for people that can't do it, YET.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I agree 100%. Just because they give us some better scripts doesn't mean that they're handing us the code. Instead of giving us some wood and nails and saying "build us a box", they're handing us power tools and saying "now make us something cool"

I, for one, am very excited about the idea. I just need time to look things over and play with it a bit.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Don;'t think of it as them giving you all the code....think of it as then giving you a more advanced tool-set to work with. Let's face it, the code is probably only a set of library like calls to handle low-level hardware I/O.

You still have to create the higher level structure and intellegence to make it do something....besides, just think of the stuff you can do with your own sensors and motors on the arms or whatever ....they have only given stuff for the drive.

Better tools.....that's all. (we have graduated to the 21st century....no more bare skins and knives)

-Quentin

:ahh:

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

well when lavery, i think,was explaing the autonomus for this year he said that it was programmed with a simple text file, so there must be some sort of way to translate between the text file and the code for the real game. it may have yet to be released.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

yeah, it's frustrating to me as well. considering all the hours I put into understanding c, and then they give us this. plus it'll make people who don't know anything feel super smart, and make me seem no better then them. that's aggravating. but I wouldn't mind seeing the code the scripting language produces to understand things better. where is the thing for writing these scripts at?

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

This is exactly the right way to look at it...and accurate too.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I for one totally agree with the above statments.

In the REAL WORLD, I program servos and industrial robots everyday. Every vendor now a days is coming out with their own scripting or I call it "Mnemonics". It totally follows the path of what the industrial automation theme is leaning toward. Because of my job, time is critical to complete a task within a required time. Design time is critical to make a profit on a job. The easier it is to program the servo or industrial robot, the more money I make for the company I work for and the less stress on me. There is nothing wrong with a "CAN" package software in my opinion. It what you do with it.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Yes, this is more like real life, BUT WHAT ARE YOU LEARNING. I'm basically going to rephrase my paragraphs above here. OK, is the FRC challenge completely based on real life problems that have not been done before? Are there robots already out there that can pick up tetrahedral shape objects. I'm sure there is, but does FIRST give you them and then tell you to just control it better then everyone else? FIRST is not entirely about real life, IMO, its about the experience along the way. I may sound like I'm raining on everyones parade by maybe limiting what "cool" things the robots can do, but I don't think this is about making it do "cool" and impressive things, it's about challenging yourself to make the robot work to the best that you possibly can and being proud about the fact that you did it on your own. Let's say you are a rookie team and you get dead reckoning to work and you know that you put all of your problem solving efforts into making it work, I believe it is just as gratifying as a veteran team putting all of their efforts into making an automatically shifting transmission that maximizes the torque and uses PID control. The rookie team may not win the regional, but is that what FIRST is really about?

I think that this is taking away from the learning and putting more of a focus on real life things. Sure you can still learn C, just because you don't need it doesn't stop someone from going out and learning about it, but people seem to learn what they need to learn. Maybe this is my Social Studies teachers fault. We have to read 8-15 pages a night and the next day we get a quiz on it that makes up for your grade. I read because I know I will be tested on it the next day. Last year I could get away with not reading because I would just cram the day before the test and do fine, but I really didn't learn (enough with the wild tangents). The point is (and I can't speak for everyone) is that some people learn what they need to. If you don't NEED to learn C, then you might not bother learning it, and you might not discover that programming may be your true passion.

Also, I sort of briefly mentioned this in my last post. Where does the code that they give you come from. SOMEONE HAD TO WRITE IT. Lets go on another tangent adventure. Say you work for a computer game company, and you are creating a game, you will usually use a game engine already written and this is fine. But what if you work for the company that writes that engine from scratch?

I don't really know why I feel this way, but I've been like this all my life. I NEED to re-invent something, I want to learn the true inner workings of things and I just believe this is taking the chance away from people in order to do that. Maybe it comes down to the fact that I believe that FIRST should not just be an opportunity for engineers to find their true passion, but computer scientists and PR people and everyone involved as well.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit. As far as I understand, the purpose of FIRST is to give students experience and education with technology and science and leave them with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

The builders get pride after building the robot with their own hands, and the programmers get pride out of giving life to the robot by using tools that give them experience in problem solving for the real life; however by handing out this new system they have snatched all the glory out of the hands of the programmers. What’s next, they are going to send us pre-built robots, to just play with?

As far as real life is concerned, many of us are aspiring engineers, the ones responsible to develop the technologies of tomorrow, by providing these tools they have taken away the learning process and the experience of real life that FIRST should supposedly provide.

Well that’s how I see it,
Vivek.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Yeah, you might not be learning what a loop is or where to put a semi-colon, but you are learning the basics. Who knows, maybe it will INSPIRE kids to learn more about programming. After all, starting with simple html like making things bold, I taught myself how to make complex and professional-looking websites. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think this new scripting language may turn out to be a kind of double edged sword. Sure its probably going to help on on some of the low level stuff such as simple movement, forward, back, basic turning etc. but in my experience you usually end up rewriting the tools that were supposed to help you out to get it to work for you application. for something generic, yeah the scripts would probably fit in and work fine, but anything above that would either need a ton of supplement code bits to do the same thing, or just cut out the middle and write your function the exact way you need it the first time. more often then not, any time i get scaled down, or some kind of scripting language it helps in the beginning but ends up to be secondary to what i could do if i made it from scratch.

anyway its optional to use so its no really biggy. take what you need from it and leave the rest IMO.

on the other hand it does make getting into programming easier. heck if a person doesn't have any background or past interest in programming and you sit them down and show them a little C. they are either going to drop it right there and then or learn it IMO. with these little (don't shoot me on this please) "dummied" functions and commands, it helps getting more people into it. if they like it, they will find some more thing to learn on the subject and grow from there.

e.g earlier in the year we were messing around with some mindstorm sets. some of us opted to use NQC to code others used the IMO worthless software that comes with the set. NQC isn't the most complex coding language out there but it was fairly easy to learn initially and eventually we had some guys expanding the basic functions to suite their own needs. so it going to be a step up for some but not all.

Its a tool for our use in a pretty nice tool set we have from FIRST, we may or may not use all the stuff in it, but its bound to help somewhere

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Scripts? well, i think that they can help the advanced programmers to use the time wasted on writing simple commands,use that time for cooler stuff. And for the rookies to not be too afraid of programming. I think that the veteran programmers should encourage the rookie programmers into not being completely dependant on the script. This new way of presenting the code may speed things up.

I mean, there is a good side and a bad side for almost anything, if we stick to the old way of writing code, new programmers might get intimidated by all those functions, but after practicing they can master it, and be real coding wizards.
On the other hand, scripting might spoil them, and the people that went trough all the hardships of dry code might feel not so good about it, but the rookie might get interested on what its going on under the scripting, and the veteran could work better things out with scripting help. And if the rookies don't want to practice with real code, you can always beat the crap out of them, hehehe.

In conclusion, using scripting should be like smoking.... Handle with care. :yikes:

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

if there is source for how the scripting language works, people may even be able to learn how to use some of the functions becase they may be able to see how the text turns into c code. im sorry if this doesnt make any sense.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I have mixed feelings about the new setup.

One the one hand, it's really cool that they've given us all this cool stuff to work with. The scripting will be cool (I hope), since I won't have to debug auton much, and the electrical engineer can do it himself. :D

But on the other one, I said during the kick-off, "Dang, ther're putting me out of a job." (Which isn't entirely true. With my relatively new PHP skills, I'll still be in demand. :) ) I'm a little worried about limits of the scripting language (spedifically, doing things with arms and driving at the same time). I'm also nervous about how "leveling the playing field" will limit the designs we see (Both in code and in the bot). (Remember how last year there was great variation in the basic look of a bot? Arms, bins, plows, etc.) Also, I'm helping frCoder a little, and that's basically what FIRST just did.

One thing's for sure, this is making for an interesting season.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Personally, I think that people are underestimating the advantage of having more scripts available. Let's draw comparisons to prior years:

1) 2003 - Autonomous code introduced. Could either do line tracking, reflective tape reading, or dead reckoning. Did you see anyone use the reflective tape? Not me! I'd say 85% of the robots that I saw did dead reckoning.

2) 2004 - Introduced infrared ability which contained code that, for many, was godawful to understand and incorporate, and extemely difficult to create without help from sites like kevin.org . Line tracking was back, and a few more teams used it. How did most teams end up coding it? Dead reckoning.

3) 2005 - Cameras, colors, and tetras, oh my!

This year raises the complexity of the routines, but limits the number of options you have for auntonomous mode. To rookies and new programmers, it would be fairly difficult to go from not knowing anything about FIRST coding to go to something this complex, especially where dead reckoning is not nearly as valuable as in past years (IMO). I think that providing scripts can be valuable for competition purposes, as well as "tutorials" to people, making it a tremendous learning experience.

I have a feeling that without these scripts to help facilitate programming, a lot of rookie teams would find their autonomous modes completely useless. And i really think that autonomous mode is going to be THAT much more important this year.

For experienced programmers, I think this provides them a fantastic opportunity to generate their own scripts to share with people, as Dave recommended during the kickoff. Have a unique and effective way to find the vision tetra? program a script! see if it's reproducable!

Anyway, I'm just ranting. My thought is that unless you plan on closing out new team registrations, you're not going to be able to advance the complexity of the game without providing an "out" for other teams to play catch up.

Realistically, you can learn to do the programming for the new routines on your own, and perhaps contriibute to the effort, rather than fight the notion that sharing with others can be a good thing.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Now, this is all my personal opinion, but I think what a lot of the people who are putting this new coding method down, are "forgetting" that they don't have to use this new method. Yeah, I can understand the frustration that can occur knowing that while you're working away at this difficult coding process, someone else can be doing essentially the same thing with very simple commands. But the advantage you have over the "simple" code is that you get to tweak it. That you can ultimately have greater control over the code.

By having this advantage, you can do things better and more efficiently than the person doing it the easy way. I don't know about you guys, but I'd find some satisfaction in that.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Re: Script level language:
 

According to one of our team mentors, the new scripting language is based on fortran, a programming language used to control the space shuttle, nuclear reactors, etc. I have not had a chance to verify this, but if NASA uses fortran scripting, and they implemented the new system, it kind of makes sense.

On another note, I have the new C18 compiler, but I cannot find the actual scripting set up? Was not there supposed to be a linik from the first page to a software dump area?

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I also have kind of mixed feelings on this. I do feel it takes some of the challenge out, what fun is it if you haven't ripped out all your hair and beaten your now bald head against the wall for extended periods of time.... But it makes sense. If you want to be technical, FIRST gave us alot of code last year, we didn't have to make the processors interface or anything, they gave us default code, and they let us use C, which is a higher level language than ASM. We could have to code it all from scratch using purely ASM.... All that they've done, is given us a higher level interface to a lower level system, which is all a programming language or scripting language is.

For the argument that it may make people "not realize their passion", I would argue the opposite. Learning C is a daunting task, its huge, and there are tons of quirks and tricks to it. It might actually scare newer programmers away. I discovered my love for programming when my cousin's girlfriend taught me some HTML 6 years ago, and I've been hooked on all kinds of programming ever since. I found it through something simple, and moved up to more complicated stuff, once you catch the bug, you want to be able to do more and more and more. Its probable that the more experience programmers will feel limited by the tools given, and will work to expand them, whereas the newer programmers will be satisfied with what is given to them, and won't worry about it. You can't give a first grader a calculus book and expect them to learn, or like math, you have to start them off simple. For many people, its fine to work with the tools given and not worry about the underlying workings. I bet many of you code in C, or Java, or something like that, and don't think about the assembly version of what you're writing.

Most of the time in the real world, you'll be given something to work with. You have argued "What if you're the person making that tool?" Well, then you must be very very very good at what you do. Why did you write your own scripting stuff in years past? JUst for your health? It was to provide an easier interface to something much more complex. And what do you do by sharing that code? You have given less experience people a way to easily write complex code. It doesn't hurt to know whats going on behind the scenes, as a matter of fact, its a great thing to know, but its not something thats required. Look at people who use HTML, they aren't writing every paint command for the browser window, somebody else did that for you, and you use their frontend.

But I see the other side, I have a tendancy to like reinventing the wheel, I don't like to use other people's code, I like to do it myself, and thats all fine and dandy if you're not working against a deadline, but if I'm pressed for time on a project, then I will certainly use somebody else's code if I can.Theres doing for the sake of accomplishing something, and then for personal enrichment. Usually for personal enrichment you aren't fighting a deadline, and if you want to spend months researching the inner workings of something, you by all means can, but FIRST doesn't give that luxury. If you worked for a game making firm, and you were supposed to have a game released in 6 months, lets say you spend 4 researching how the graphics hardware works, and 1.5 months writing a library to interface with it. Thats great, but now you have half a month to make a game, when you could have used something that was already out there and had 6 months to focus on the game. Using tools doesn't make you any less of a programmer, it makes you a more efficent worker. My English teacher in 9th grade drilled this into our heads, "Work smarter, not harder." Thats a real life lesson for ya.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Honestly .. I like it. Some people might not be able to get much out of it, but I know I will. I taught myself HTML through comparing the code to the results .. this gives me a chance to teach myself some basic C programming by comparing the code to the English version of it all.

-shrugs-

Then again, not everyone thinks like me, so.. I don't know. Personally, though, I'm sort of glad that they did what they did. Advanced programmers/teams aren't restricted to the "simple" coding, either.. so you can do whatever you want.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

You can still read through their code and gain from it, especially the well-designed state machines and conventions used for the RS-232 driver they wrote and how they interface the driver with the camera. They did an amazing job of separating concerns -- keeping the implementation of the autonomous functions completely separate from the functions themselves, such that only VERY little knowledge of the inner-workings of the functions is needed in order to use them. We spent A LOT of time last semester in advanced C learning methods for doing this, and I suspect that it is a valued attribute of any large software programming environment in the "real world."

I agree somewhat with you all, though, that something as simple as an angular/displacement PID system should have been left to the teams. These are fundamental control topics from which many team members have learned a lot in the past, including myself.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I've been all about sharing everything I learn. I even post my source code that I write for industrial automation. If you care to look:

http://forum.mrplc.com/index.php?act...hor=chakorules

I even shared my electrical symbols addon for AutoCad for the whole world to download:
http://forum.mrplc.com/index.php?act...CODE=02&id=146

I encourge this because my purpose is to help people learn quicker and get the job done faster. I think you can still learn alot by seeing what others have done. That's how open source software got started. Everyone looks at what someone else has done, and makes it better. It's like stacking your man hours ontop of each other. You keep adding to the time that has already been spent to perfect the product. In this case, your robot automous mode.

But the points in here are vaild, it depends on what kind of a person you are.
Your either a Linus Torvalds or a Bill Gates... LOL ;-) no pun intended..

On a side note...I've been looking at this new software and I still haven't found this "scripting" yet anyway....bah....I am going to bed...

I've been able to complie and debug the new 2005 code and the 2005 Camera code, but no scripting for the kiddies in there yet...

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think this is great. As time goes on, and as we FIRST students become FIRST mentors, higher and higher level programming languages (ones that are closer and closer to being exactly like language) are going to become a lot more common. FIRST is giving us one of these, except it only has two built in functions. It's an entirely different experience, and if you don't want to use it, you don't have to. Would you rather write code in binary than assembly? Rather write in assembly than C? The same principle applies here. I think this is great for the rookie teams because, as anyone who attended competitions last year, not many teams were able to have a functioning autonomous. THis is making it so that everyone has at least something for their autonomous mode.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Trust me, if all the scripting can do out of the box is drive, turn, and wait, it's not going to be effective.

You still need to figure out how to get your camera to home in on the vision tetra, track where you are in relation to the goal you're capping, and then raise up the tetra to cap it.

Of course, when you're done you'll be able to write a script command called "cap vision tetra center" and then have 1 line of code for all of autonomous :D

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think its great that they're doing this. It gives rookie teams a much smaller (and less hectic) workload programming-wise and for veterans, well, like people have mentioned before, its not necessary to use the code. Even if your team does decide to use the code, its not like you wont have anything to do. You'll still need to program autonomous mode and any appendages/sensors your robot needs.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I personaly like it.

We had so much trouble trying to write up line-sensor code.

Thank you FIRST!

(And nice avatar, Enterprise.)

EDIT

You know what, I really hope FIRST will tell us where to get these tools. :confused:

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

With the easy code everyone can think more about game strategy. This thing's like a massive moving tic-tac-toe. It's going to get pretty crazy with six teams out there trying to strategize on the fly.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think you're right. At first, I felt a little selfish about it, because I didn't like the feeling that suddenly everyone was at the same level, even though I have more programming skill/experience than others, because that's how I spend my time. However, I'm now seeing how this is all part of the field-leveling plan of FIRST, to make things accessible to new, underfunded, or undermentored teams, but still allowing those who can go above and beyond to do so. With this scripting, virtually every team should be able to at least knock off the hanging tetra, but not manipulate the vision tetra without a lot of additional effort. Those who have done this before will still be able to do fantastic things in autonomous, but at least all of the teams will be able to do something.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I was worried about this for all of 3 seconds. However, autonomous is just a little part of the game that rookies can get into now. 15 seconds, big deal. I think it's good to have something happen in the first 15 seconds now.

The real reason I'm not worried about rookies having this capability though, is because my team spends a lot of creative effort on designing and programming the drive system. Until FIRST supplies code for our particular flavor of omnidrive, I still get to keep my "job". :D

Scripting is not the answer to all programming problems. Teams with experienced programmers will still have an advantage over those that don't, but you'll need a pretty good programmer to have an advantage in autonomous mode.

Oh, and writing HTML isn't programming. :p (though at times, it maybe just as frustrating)

Yep, I'm elitist enough not to worry.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

1. We have to actually get the new scripting module before it does any of us any good.

2. Actually, I think the camera in one of the coolest parts of the kit because it is multi-layer. It comes with on-board tracking software, but you can also completly re-write the camera to run more advanced functions, I have already come up with a way to do calibration without a PC, instead using a small lcd screen.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Our team spent the last three months developing a PID controller capability. How do THINK we feel! FIRST is losing sight of the fact that it's supposed to be an engineering challenge. The real world is not plug-and-play.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

This thread disgusts me.

FIRST is giving you a great tool, and you are bad mouthing them because it "dumbs down programming"

As far as I see this, these tools are just a basis FIRST gives us to springboard to new heights. FIRST has given us drill motor transmissons and the tools to build a bot right from the KOP in the last few years, but you dont see people complaining that they didnt make it themselves.

Use these tools as a starting point, not as an end product.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Hey hey, calm down, every programmer has a right to feel pissed. Now it's very very difficult for teams to compete and have an advantage due to good programming. Programming has always been at a bit of a disadvantage, since I doubt there are many mentors on teams who code for a living. I imagine teams try to get mechanical engineers and people of that sort more than programmers. It feels like FIRST is trying to eliminate any challange in programming by giving all these premade packages, but I personally think it lets those teams without awesome programmers to compete on the same level, and gives those with great programmers a challenge.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I'm curious why this matters so much. You can do a search on this web site and find plenty of examples of PID controllers. You still have to know what it does, how to tune it, and how to debug it when it doesn't work. You know how to do all of that now so you're ahead of the curve.

Unless you build the default robot chassis with the supplied gearbox you will have to modify and adapt any code they provide. Any other area of software development has tons of examples of how to do things. FIRST, in the past, provided little to no information specific to programming a robot. They are doing the right thing by filling that gap. I highly doubt the samples will be anything more than a starting point.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think this is a great thing, not only the code but the improved chassis and transmission.
To all the veteran teams with fancy PID, line-tracking, IR-following and RPS (Robot Positioning Systems :p) algorithms, I'm sorry, but it's gonna need improvement, because every single rookie in this competition already has one, supplied by FIRST.
Get the point? What FIRST is doing is fantastic; rookies jump into this competition with much better tools than they used to have, and veteran teams are "forced" to improve their systems because the bar was significantly raised.
In theory, what FIRST does is supposed to level the playing field, but I'm sure they know that they'll never accomplish that; instead, they are indeed raising the overall level of the competition, and this is great to make FIRST bigger than it currently is, and that's what we all should strive for - more teams, more people involved, more lives touched.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I don't know what to think of it.

I didn't do a lot with programming last year; but I guess this will leave me with more time to look at other things like trying to replace the joysticks with a playstation controller. (if possible) :ahh:

Hopefully the camera will be a success with the vision tetras.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I do not think that they are making programming particularly easy. I have spent the last 10 hours trying to add the math, encoder, interrupt, camera, vision control, and serial control libraries/modules to the FRC 2005 default code. I have managed to make most of the modules work together, but some of the Camera modules are crap. They refuse to compile "out of the box" I have spent two hours tracing the code and calls and trying to make them work with Kevin Watsons LCD serial controller. The software is anything but simple (just read the camera manual). I think that you guys are constructing something in your minds which does not exist.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

the programming is too way easy this year. Writing the code this year is going to be boring and too simple. 2 years of programming classes down the drain. Oh well now we have more time to build instead of debug so its not all a bad thing. Good luck to all the FIRST teams this year. 44 days of build time left as of now

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Seriously,

Take a look at the code before you start talking. If the kevin.org/frc version is correct, the "scipted" commands are simply a matrix in the file "commands.h." That being the case, all you are really doing is calling macros, besides, if you can integrate the Camera system effectivly with interrupts, etc., you are doing well. Finally, you do not have to use the scripting, if you are really that good, go ahead and write in binary.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I think what FIRST has done gives MORE students potential in programming and engineering that they didn't have before. I don't speak programming, not well anyway, but with the new code I can actually understand what's going on. And to me, that's golden. I would love to understand more than just what the robot is made of and how it works. This gives every student, not just the programmers, to try their hand at something new. I think we all need to remember that FIRST is about inspiration, not about competition. With the new code I think FIRST is more likely to see kids heading in the programming direction that might have been afraid to previously.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Every team this year is also getting pieces to build gearboxes and frames out of a kit, and I don't think all of the mechs are complaining. Rookie teams are happy that they can get a successful robot and focus on making a robot competitive now, rather than just a robot, while I expect most veteran teams are still going to build all of their own gearboxes and chassis.

Same with programming- I expect most veteran teams will use what they know and write at a lower level w/o scripting or at least extending their scripting to be more powerful, while rookie teams will use the 'out-of-the-box' code.

If FIRST removed the ability to code at a lower level, there would be a problem, but they didn't. Rookie teams are still going to need to figure out what to do with the tools to be competitive.

I think that FIRST is very worried about veteran teams getting so much more advanced than rookie teams that rookie teams never stand a chance. That's why this year they tried to find ways to help rookie teams remain competitive with the most of the teams at a competition, and that's why this year we have a 3v3 game: in 1v1's rookies stand a suffer alone, is 2v2's, the veteran paired with a rookie often stands at a significant disadvantage, but in a 3v3, a rookie team doesn't really matter as much as past years. 3 team alliances also force rookie and veteran teams to talk, to strategize together, and helps rookie teams learn from the veterans.

I think the biggest difference this year is that this game is different-- there's no big mechanical challenge this year like 10' high chin-ups, but there's a big strategy challenge in managing the alliances. I think this is the biggest 'problem' this year, and that kits and better default code was inevitable.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

The FIRST scripting has just been released. That means that all of this complaining was without even seeing the "scripting." Kevin Watson wrote the scripting system. It is available at kevin.org/frc.

Please download the zip, and take a look at the way it works before you start complaining, even the writing is difficult. Not to mention, the Camera software is not supported by the scripting system . . . so, all of you "its too easy to program" people, figure out a way to make the serial port driver in the FIRST release (required for LCD screens and the new powersystem) interface with the serial port driver required to make the Camera function. In addition, you must develop scripting commands for each camera function. Then, add interrupts, encoders, math libraries, gyro control, banner sensor control (for those of you who do wheel rev counts), custom interface control (a nightmare to adapt to the new serial drivers), and any custom robot parts, and then, sure, its almost easy.

P.S.: For anyone not thrilled to do all that themselves, I have posted a version of the default code in the white papers section here. It includes support for the camera, the new Dynamic Diagnostics Tool (included in IFI loader 1.8), LCD screens, and the power system, it also incorperates interrupts, encoder control, and gyro control. In addition I have included the cordic math libraries and basic camera control, while maintaining the scripting set-up.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I wouldn't mind looking at your code to see how you got all those things incorporated, but when I tried looking for it in the white paper section, it wasn't there. Did you not post it up there yet? I'll check back later.

Thanks.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Kevin,

I do not think that you have looked at the game close enough...

Center of gravity and strength of materials will be a huge problem for a majority of teams. In fact, I think it likely that an awful lot of teams will not be able to solve the problem.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Chris,

Well said! This is hardly a trivial challenge.

Regards,

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Still, I feel like lifting a pvc tetra to cap a the 7' tall goal isn't as hard having a robot lift itself up on a 10' bar.

[EDIT]
Not to mention climbing the steps to get to the bar...

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

We shall see....

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

we're having trouble with Kevin W's code. we have an encoder hooked up to digital (interrupt) 1 (left encoder). this encoder is actually working on an arm, so for now we're not bothering with the wheels. here is the code in user_routines_fast. everything else is configured properly. the only thing is that our encoder's "b" phase isn't wired yet. will this mess it up? here's the code, I'm interested if this will even work as I'm somewhat new to this stuff.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

your right the coding is easier to understand. i just figured that easier meant worse but now that i've given it a second look its easier to understand and teach to new members so they can take over for the seniors who are leaving after this season. i do agree with you in that it gives more people a chance to see if they like programming.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Yeah, I would guess not having the B line connected will keep your code from operating as you expect. (Since you don't explain how you expect it to operate, I will make some assumptions.)

Not having the B line connected will keep the software from knowing which direction the encoder is turning. If you're lucky(?), the encoder interrupt handler will DECREMENT the counter on each interrupt, so that the arm control will appear to operate correctly for a while (with the exception that the arm won't stop where you think it should be when the encoder counter = 12.) After the encoder counter overflows, the arm will stop responding, because the counter will now be greater than 12.

If, on the other hand, the interrupt handler INCREMENTS the counter instead of decrementing it, I expect that the arm will stop responding after just a slight twitch, no mater which direction you move the joystick. (I say just a slight twitch, because 12 seems like such a small number when you're talking about encoders. I could be wrong, and your encoder might actually be of low enough resolution that a count of 12 will actually measure a reasonable arm rotation.)

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Steve,

First of all, please do not take this personally (it is usually a matter of communication)...

Please start by explaining your algorithm in plain English. What you are trying to do. Your code/question does not make sense to me.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Yes, but now you have to raise an 8 pound hunk of plastic 7' in the air, plus, the more they stack, the higher it gets, to you have to reach higher and higher, each time you're holding an 8-12 pound object on the end of an arm, stressing the material alot because of wobbling, and the center of gravity gets moved and tipping is easier..... I think its just as hard.... Instead of just having raw power to pull your 120 pounds up, you have to find a way to make a manuverable bot, but one that won't tip when you really throw the center of gravity off

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

I agree, hanging is relatively easy compared to this. The reason is that you only had to hang once last year, and once you were hooked on the bar you were pretty much set. Now, though, you'll have to quickly stack a bunch of tetras during each match, and you can't attach to anything.

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

ok, we fixed the encoder b phase wiring. but still no success. the code has the robot raise its arm when the 3rd joystick goes forward, and then stops the arm when the encoder counts above 12

Re: What do you think about how easy theyre making programming?
 

Stephen,

You've described what you expect the code to accomplish, but now we need to know what behavior you actually observe: Does the arm not move at all? Does it move without being commanded to? Does it start moving when you move the joystick, but not stop where you think it should? Does it move the wrong direction?

I bet I could imagine at least as many more failure modes. Please fill in a few more details, and we will be able to zero in on your problem more easily.

It might also be a good idea if you move this discussion to a separate thread.