pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

You know its happened to you. You're the head electronics guy, you miss a day because you have skill bowl, you come back ... BAM! all the pwms are unplugged (of course you haven't got around to labeling them yet), he's holding a screw driver, and the programmer is ripping his hair out: "IT DOESN'T WORK!"

... oh nose ...

So I came up with a little "Keep your electronics safe" kit.

Share your electronic stories here. :D

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Wait I am both one of the head electronics guys and the lead programmer. But sometimes my programmer side wants to do things to the electrical system that the electrical side just plain would not like.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

well, as a programmer i belive that is completly evil, its hard enough when the speed controllers are near the program port. but having a mouse trap thats just plain evil. but some thing u can tell the programmer that the mouse trap is the new model victor on it. since it says victor.


now heres my electronics story.

i think a week ago, we were debugging the pwm connections, and one of them wasnt working. so we unplugged the pwm cable, while the robot was on. so when we tried to plug it back in, i accidentally touched the pwm cable to the metal fins IN the speed controller, ZZAPPPP, sparks, and the speed controller blows. i thought i blew out the pwm port on the rc also, it scared the crud out of me. its why my sig says proud destroyer of a victor.

dillon

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Slight physical blocks will never stop a good programmer, we can just program around it.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

yes but in the spur of the moment, you have to dl the new code, uve been called to be queued up, theres a mouse trap above the program port, then SNAP, pinched fingers = bad typing, and pain.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

see, the programmer in its natural habitat will instinctively blame the electronics for the problem:

just this evening the programmer and his dad spent (no exaggeration) 1.5 hrs troubleshooting the electronics, before they figured out "hey, i just loaded a new code" :ahh:

as a good electronics person, whenever you see a programmer with a screwdriver, you must immediately inform the proper authorities

i love programmers :)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Yeah I've had the same problems...
I'm thinking of hiding everything but the switch and the robot controller on days that I'm gone.... :)
And our team is the same- every programming problem is blamed on the electronics.. lol

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

personally, I don't think there is any need for a separate electrical and programming group. The programmers should be the ones to do the electronics and programming, this way they are completely in control of their code and can more easily find bugs in their code, or modify electronics on the ui or bot more quickly. seems more efficient to me. and by the way, 1.5 hours shouldn't be complained about, unless you have years of experience.. I won't go into how much time we've spent troubleshooting our pneumatics. came down to a bad pwm wire. I spent probably 6 hours overall, modifying code, etc. because they always thought it was a problem in my code. wow, wish I had more experience.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

First off, I'm not sure that you are using the correct Victor for this year, but unless you post a pic with the model number I guess we have to trust you.

Second, it won't work. No programmer will be stopped by a mere hardware feature. (Here, let me do that ... *SNAP* OW OW OW!!! Hey, what was that? <reboot> Here let me do that ... *SNAP* OW OW OW!!! Hey, what was that? <reboot>: well, you get the point.)

Third, if they're going to blame you for it anyway, you might as well have fun.

Fourth, as a mentor I have to frown on this sort of thing.

Fifth, as a former programmer and amateur radio operator, :)

Sixth, remember, as fur-bearing creatures, programmers may only be trapped between November and March.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Well the funny thing is, this is my sixth year on this team, and my first four years (back in the glorious days of basic) I did electronics and programming. The two aformentioned programmers on my team are second year (a father and a son). What I did was, after spending about 10 mins tracing all my connections with an ohm meter, I did the only logical thing and (in my mind) blamed it on the programmers. One hour and twenty minutes later, they tried a new code and ... IT WORKED! :ahh: I thought: "Eh, might as well let them figure it out for themselves."

So I completly agree with

you are a wise man Rick

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

I agree it seems odd to have seperate electronics and programming teams, unless you have a crazybig team and it makes sense that way. My co-programmers and I do all the electronics as well. This makes it soo much more efficient, especially with the recent addition of such electronics as the camera. We also are less likely to get in each others' way. But, we've always had this sort of "mechanical team" and "everything else technical" team :-)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

When Alan Anderson is your teams programmer...you don't keep him out of the electronics...you encourage him. :)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

If I only have a contraptio which allowed to me keep programmers away from all the electronic equipment, then I'll be a happy camper.

One of the programmers was working with our gyro for a few days before we were to mount it onto the electronics board. When it finally came time to mount the gyro, I couldn't find it. So I asked him where he put it, but he couldn't remember. I sent him to look for it; ten minutes later he turns up with nothing and says that he has to go back to work. Which left me to look for that gyro, which by the way happened to have been stacked away UNDER just about every storage bin we have. Now thankfully, the gyro wasn't crushed at all, the bins were supported by other spare parts that I had lost.

Man... I'm telling you electronics people, keep track of all your stuff.
No offense to our programmers, I love 'em, they are the life force of the robot. :)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

My being from 447 as well, I would have to disagree with the eff. of combining the subteams. We always ( even in relaxing times ) have this constant urgency,lol. Having 2 subteams for programming and electronics gives us, the Machine Shop Team, 2 places to blame for any problems. . . . . . because it is NEVER a the our fault! lol :rolleyes:

Sorry Rufdus, I HAD TO POST IT!!

Pic on how to keep the remainder of the robot safe from the Electronic/Programming Team COMING SOON!

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

because of ppl like you, i do not TOUCH the robot. i don't even press the load button or the reset button. nooo touchy. but i like it better like that, this way, when something goes wrong, i can wholly blame the electronics ppl and not just partially. =)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

That’s why you be both :D I program and do electronics.

I cant see how teams succeed with both teams being completely separate unless you had some great communications. Heck, it’s probably a good idea to have everyone be cross trained in another team for good communications.

And a small jab at the electronics only people:
Lets be honest, it’s just wiring! It’s not like you have to build a custom robotic controller! (J/K Please don’t flame me :D )

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

(lol, this isnt a flame, its safe to read on :)


I agree with you 100% The wiring of a FIRST robot is "just wiring" But the conceptualizing and creating of things like virtual joysticks, and a full optical control system is not "just wiring" I programmed in basic for my first 4 years, with the default code and a few if statements, programming is "just programming" but if you want to work autonomous magick, you have to know what your doing. I tell you a small parable to emphasise my point. :yikes:

I missed this last saturday because of skillbowl regionals. I came back late saturday afternoon to the all too everpresent programmer cries of "ITS WIRED WRONG!" I asked: "What did you people change?" I got the good ol' "nothing, your wiring is wrong, I can't do anything till you fix it."

I make mistakes, so I probed a little deeper and broke out my volt meter and found out that the programmer's dad had wired up the banner sensor himself (with help from his programmer son of course). It was wired into a PWM sharing a common +5 with a hall-effect sensor. (Now at this point the programmers reading this are saying "so" and the electrcians with 3+ years are saying "OMFG BANANNAS!")

I'll just let you know, the banner sensors (the throwback optical sensors from 3ish years ago) have to, HAVE TO, have a seperate +12 to operate. If you run them straight into a PWM with +5 it will completly bog down your digital in bus and stop all robot actions.

So once I found this problem, I became aware of this buzzing sound. It was the constant "advice" of the programmers on how to fix "my" wiring problems. Little did they know, one of their own had done it, and I knew how to fix it. So I "Had Fun", I went into the other room, roamed around on chiefdelphi, checked my e-mail, checked the CAL ladder, and after 1.5 hrs went back in, after the programmers had officially decleared we had a faulty RC and the world was ending, I fixed the problem in one pimptastic swoop. I took the +5 and - the hall-effect and banner senseor were sharing and re-wired them to the breaker panel (because I knew the hall-effect was rated up to around +15 I think).

Moral of the story:

1) Keep the programmers away from your electronics~!

2) If you do electronics, learn C and phase out the programmers (its not hard at all, get "Sam's Teach yourself C in 21 days" - problem solved)

(my hat is off to all of you who already do both :)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

It is not a good idea to keep programmers away from electronics, unless they do not know electronics, which they should because electronics are very related.
Good idea except instead of phasing them out, I would recommend that you teach both groups how to do both (just in case), instead of just having the electronics team doing both, and of course you are right, programming is not hard at all.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

So true...
I get blamed for everything wrong with the programming.... crazy indian programmers...

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

One member of our team, we still don't know who, wired a little badly during our "in house competition" before FIRST. One of the victors on the test bot had both the power input and ouput cables goin to the fuse board. It made nice smelling smoke.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Ok guys.. this has really gone on for way too long. The electrical team is called that because they handle all the electrical hardware on the robot. If you have one, it means that you have some faith in their abilities. The same applies to programmers with their job being software. If a problem arises, playing the blame game just wastes time. The way i see it goes like this.

- Blame teams -(time passes)

- Figure out who got blamed more -(more time passes)

- Losing team goes insane trying to find the problem with other team standing vindictively behind them - (you've missed 1-2 practice matches)

- Other team begins to search for problem in losing teams area of expertise -(missed another 1-2 practice matches)

- Giving up the other team begins to scour their area for the problem with the previously losing team being vindictive - (miss or operate badly in 1-4 Seeding rounds)

- Problem is finally found and hopefully resolved -(two whole teams are worn out and a lot of time is wasted)

The times may be shorter or longer, but what I'm saying is always entertain the possibility that your team did it. Each team should work on finding and solving the problem their area of expertise. The problem will almost always be found faster and you save your whole team a lot of headaches.

So back to the topic. How do I keep the programmers out of the electronics? Mutual respect for each other's work and an understanding of efficient team dynamics.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

On our robot the program port is right beside the wheels so I have to go in between the chains to get to it... all they would have to do is turn it on while I'm working to kill my precious fingers (or my precious serial cable)! But that's why I unplug the pwms! To save my fingers. :D

(I usually plug them back in afterwards)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Nice pic. except we wouldn't be keeping our programmer out of the electronics. We'd be keeping other kids who might screw up the electronics out of there. Not mentioning names, there is a kid on our team (freshman this year) who has a lot of dedication and hard working skills. The only problem is that he gets annoying cause he talks a lot and likes to "fix" stuff on the robot. lol. that would be perfect for this kid. thanks for the idea. :D

-Crash

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

lol, on 1549 all of us except our 1 programmer are ellectrical and mechanical. I am learning C as well, not to replace him as he is brilliant but so i can write things in that he attributes to "operator error". In short...

If the ellectronics and mechanical both work, programmers blame THE DRIVERS!!!!!!

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Been there, and As a lead mentor, when I get really grumpy, I make programming back up every hex file with a useful name, So the one that was somewhere near correct can be put back in while they sort out what went wrong.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Biff: You'd get along well with our electronics/programming mentor.....

Our problem usually lies in mechanical people messing up... I'll never forget that somehow they shorted out one of our relay outputs with a chain.... That was amusing, especially as they scream and say "uhhhh.... pickle... are sparks a good thing coming out of that black box???". Ya, it was fun.

But you should be nice to programmers, we don't like being blamed for everything (because its so easy). I think last year one of the teachers told me to fix like a mechanical design flaw in software.. this year i think he told me to take 10 pounds off in software... You should love your programmers :)

But I do think that since electronics and programming are so related, its a good idea to have one team work on both. It keeps things less confusing. Last year we had to play the pick the pwm port game, where before almost every match they had rewired the PWM cables to different outputs because they didn't know which went where. That was oodles of fun, especaially if it didn't get worked out before the driver had to drive it..... Though, beware programmers with screwdrivers is a good motto.. *looks at scars* hammer + screwdriver + programmer = bad

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

A mousetrap? *sighs* yet another software problem...

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

ya, we play the blame game all build season, but when it comes time to compete, problems get fixed fast, but its because, at least on our team, down in the pits its just the lead students from each sub team, none of the "underlings"

but i give mad props to all the up and coming programmers and electricians, who have messed up, got blamed, and fixed their problems, because one day, you will be the head electrician or programmer, down in the pits, making those 5 minute fixes for the finals

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

One (serious) suggestion for anyone who hasn't already done this:

The robot controller can often (read always) be hard to reach. If you plug serial cables into the program and tether ports and run them neatly to somewhere somewhat accessible on your bot it becomes much easier to plug in. You can even put them up high (depending on the bot) so you don't even have to bend over to plug them in! hows that for convenient!

Also, a rocker switch attached to the reset and program buttons in an easy to reach place is also a good idea.

- Toby

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

I found a really nice solution to this, provided you have someone who can follow a wire from one end to the other :)

I have a file full of those.. and I use the drive_left_1, etc in the code.. so when it comes time to wire the robot, I print the file, and then its just matching :)

Hrm, sounds like a good idea, I'll have to try that next year

I kind of learned electronics as I went.. Up until about a week ago, we had victors supported only by their wires on the practice bot, because I would wire them, and not know how to mount them, so they just kind of hung there.
Having to wait for someone to wire stuff up was not a fun way to do things, so it was much easier for me to learn to do stuff.. didn't seem that hard to do, other then verifying everything a couple of times.

Then again, I learned a lot this year.. the code would often be sitting waiting for someone to hook up the hardware.. with everything, pneumatics, wiring, etc... That happened until I started adding it myself.. then the program/spike/victor would be waiting for the actual robot component to be added.

Now I'm the first one called to the pit when something stops working, rather then last year, where they wanted me as far away from the robot as possible :)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Personally Having Sub-Teams and the team as a whole is good and bad.


Sub Teams Bad: Lack of Communication, Place of Blame is always diverted from the ones who caused the mess (Just be honest and say sorry its my fault - no reason to lie), If the person just comes around to "only program the robot" you run a very good risk of them not being able to show up and further complicating things.

Sub Teams Good: Your able to concentrate more at the matter at hand, You feel better that you have control as to whats going on and everyone else has to guess =), Brings in more team members who can find a place or their fortee - ( what they can do the best )

Personally I like having subteams, It gives everyone the time and place and order to which things should be done. First The Build Team builds the structure, Electrical Wires up the structure, Programmer comes in and tells the structure what to do. If for some reason the programmer sees that something would cause the program not to work he should consult someone before taking action. The only thing a programmer has say is where he would like the robot controller to be so he can access tether and programmers port -OR- which i have never seen yet:

A DB9 extension coming from both the tether and the Programming Ports and placed on the robot for easy access so that the programmer doesn't have to dig around / remove things to get access to the RC.

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

we put one of those on our robot ... then in the first regional, we took them of for weight ... ROFLOLMAOL!

its the little luxuries that go first

one good thing about sub teams is it lets the individual aspects of the robots be excelled beyond "just getting it done"

the small success our team has been blessed enough to have in the way of innovation awards, i like to believe, comes from specialization based on sub teams

if you just want to "wire up that there robot" yes, electronics is just wiring that anyone can do. but if you want to learn and excel, its best to have sub teams were you can concentrate and flourish in your individual area of interest

don't get me wrong though, everyone on our team is expected to be proficient in at least two "areas" so communication between sub teams is made much much easier

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Is that Victor an 883 or an 884? I can't tell... :p :p



(surprised no one said that yet)

Re: pic: (447) How do YOU keep programmers out of the electronics?
 

Its definitely a red 884 ( which are far more reliable than the blue ones ) :rolleyes: