Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I agree with the need for an embedded microcontroller. I wonder if any of the open-source ones listed on this page might do? http://www.opencores.org/browse.cgi/by_category

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Ditto. Team 1024's programming group calls ours RALFF... even has a (slightly unstable :o ) GUI compainion software that allows easy compilation of autonomous scripts by anybody on the team. RALFF was installed on this year's robot however its sensors never worked so it didnt show off like many saw on our amazing 2006 autonomous modes...

I'll have to write a whitepaper on scripting languages sometime... ehh... sometime... :rolleyes:

And eh, again, on the whole x86 based robot controller thing... to make it work (and no, the HDD would NEVER take the g's)... you'd need a heck of alot of hardware... see previous post for an estimate.

-q

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

What do you mean by ported into Big Dog? A robot can be used for many things... what you are speaking of is probably a single application that the little dog robot is used for. There are many different universities using the Little dog for very different research goals.

What they are doing at the AI lab is trying to create a knowledge model which allows multi-legged robots to traverse extremely complex terrains. The robot literally learns how to walk across different surfaces as it tries over and over (and often fails) to cross a certain type of surface. For this type of computation they most certainly DO use a traditional workstation for computation. Of course if we were to have an actual military robot or something an embedded processor would be the right choice ... but for experimentation it's easier (for them) to work on a computer.

In response to BrianBSL
Actually when I was talking about cost, I meant for an interface... Users would provide their own PCs so it wouldn't "really" be part of the cost ... everyone has access to a PC or Mac all that is necessary is the right hardware and interface software to make it communicate with a robot.

And now that I look into it more I can see where you are coming from... I still feel like it's not as black and white as you make it because we are still limited by tools that are compatible with the embedded chip.

I don't have much experience with embedded chips...So I think I should probably learn more about them before I say anything else.
Say I wanted to run some Python code to control my robot wouldn't I have to port the source code of the interpreter to work on the embedded chip... ?? Would this be an easier task then writing code to let us have access to the hardware interface?

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

You can run linux on many embedded processors, including the intel Xscale, so it would be as simple as compiling the Python interpreter for that chip.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Wow.

I'm always impressed with the level of technical knowledge that First folks have.

However, I sincerely hope that First does not go in many of the directions you guys are suggesting. Linux operating system? Math coprocessors? Different computer langauge? Multi-threading? What percentage of the world uses Linux? What percentage of the world knows how to deal with all the complicated options you guys are talking about?

Right now we have a very "simplistic" system. One that I would venture to guess that 90% of the teams couldn't get a camera, encoders, or potentiometers running without Kevin Watson's code or the appropriate Easy-C pre-coded libraries.

I've done C-Programming since high school 18 years ago. But holy-moly! I can't think of a single person I know (and I work in a manufacturing environment where I spend millions of dollars a year working with contractors) who has a sufficient level of hardware interface knowledge to be able to code things like interrupts etc. This is pretty specialized stuff folks - and it becomes even more so when you move away from a very common langauge to even more exotic options.

I would be very disappointed if First moved in a direction that basically threw out all the work that has been done to date. Our team would end up back in the stone age - turning PWM's on and off would be pretty much all we could do.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Actually, a good portion of the fisr community, myself included, use Linux. It is hailed for it's reliability. You're probably right about the camera thing there. But in all honesty, all you need a library compiled! And they would'nt be throwing out all the work. Nobody said anything about them abandoning C!

I know that the new PIC processors came out at IFI, I think that it's just an OI upgrade with a USB system.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

To be honest, how do you know that a large amount of the first community uses linux? I know for a fact, only one person on our team uses linux, and he only uses it on the rare occasion that he cannot accomplish something easily in windows. Even with all of the help from kevin and the good folks at intelitek, at the midwest regional, there were only two teams that attempted to score during autonomous, and only one managed to score, and even then, we only scored five times out of the whole competition. If things change too much, teams will be left in the dust.
Just my $.02
Malhon

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Also, don't forget using Linux and being a competent Linux programmer, are two totally different things. Even if a good portion of FIRST students use Linux, I doubt many can program for it.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

You are incorrectly assuming that the other teams did not attempt because they were not able to and/or the problem was too hard. This is not the case - I can think of several teams at Midwest that I know are fully capable of completing an autonomous task like 2007's (and I'm sure there's many more than that which I am not thinking of at this time). I assume they (like us) decided that the autonomous payoff was not worth the investment and chose to spend their time/resources elsewhere. We chose to focus our software and electrical skills on making our robot easier to control for the operators. In the end, we feel we made the right decision.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

And you did an excellent job at that, I am trying to say if FIRST switched over to a completely different control system, that it would make it much harder to accomplish things as fast as it would be with the current control system. To the best of my knowlege, by West Michigan, the championship, and IRI, you're robot had excellent autonomous capabilities. Wouldn't it have been nice to have that in the beginning also? Thats all Im trying to say. If a completely new control system was brought into effect, with nothing similar to the current one, it could take much longer to get to where you could be had FIRST stuck with the current control system, in your case, maybe no autonomous, and the robot much harder to control.
Malhon

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I don't understand your reasoning. Different and difficult are not the same word. As a counterpoint to what you're trying to say, consider the significant change between 2003 and 2004's robot controllers. None of the previous PBASIC programming experience applied directly to the use of C in the new system, but the extra power of the new system made doing almost everything much easier. Algorithms remain intact even when the underlying architecture changes, and having more capability in the hardware yields more "breathing room" for fast implementation.

We also don't know how the 2009 control system will connect to the robot sensors and effectors, or how much will be taken care of by the hardware. It could very well be a lot easier to work with than this year's system.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

You still missed my point. If we wanted it in the beginning we would have had it. The autonomous you saw at other events was implemented mostly in a single 5 hour fix-it window. The control system did not prevent us from implementing it before Midwest. We decided not to do it before then because it wasn't valuable enough, and we were right.
I agree this is a possibility, and frankly if the new control system does not permit us to at least choose to use C then I will be highly disappointed (however more language options would be fantastic). As long as the designers of the new system don't do anything really ill-advised (like requiring the use of Labview [ugh]) then we should be fine. Remember, the 2007 rules did not permit you to reuse software that you wrote from prior years, so you can't really make the argument that changing systems would force you to rewrite stuff since that was already true this year. Sure, Kevin's stuff would need to be replaced, but I'm sure he or someone else in the community would be right on top of that.

As empirical evidence, in 2003 we implemented this awesome little autonomous system that tracked our robot's position on the field and allowed us to literally draw out our autonomous routines in a GUI. It worked wonderfully, even course-correcting when other robots would bump into it. This system was written in PBASIC (with only 90 bytes of RAM and 16K of EEPROM!) and HC08 assembly. In 2004 they released the C-based controllers and we switched to C on our custom circuit as well. Re-implementing this system on the new setup was a breeze compared to doing it in PBASIC and allowed us to do many new things that we couldn't before. In 2003 there were only a handful of teams capable of something like that. Now, there are dozens of teams trying to recreate what we did back then. And many base their work on a presentation that we put together describing our 2003 system, which talks about the algorithms we used which are just as applicable today as they were in the days of PBASIC (see Alan's post above).

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Question? What would the First community think of going with something completely new , different and proprietary if the software company was flush with cash and in to sponsoring first in a big way. If First committed to their software platform. I'm talking about MSRS. Microsoft is already a sponsor and this year Will launch the Seattle regional. Would you sell your programming soul to MS if it meant lots of cash and support for the First program? I've recently had time to play with MSRS and believe it could take First into the future. There would be an enormous amount of development work but, the pay off in future growth and flexibility could be enormous. With MS's push into robotics and education I don't believe the marriage would be to hard to arrange. However, a divorce would be nasty.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Were it up to me, I would turn down that opportunity.

MS Robotics Studio is obviously very powerful. It provides a lot of infrastructure that makes programming act a lot like putting together a network of independent computers. It could very well be the way of the future. For a High School robotics program in the present of the early 21st Century, however, I think it might be a bit much to expect people to embrace.

From the very first tutorial, on detecting a bumper switch contact: "The simplest way to bind the service partner to your hardware is to start an additional manifest which contains the service contract(s) for your hardware."

Yeah, good luck not scaring off potential student programmers with that one. :rolleyes:

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

There is a reason that FIRST does not accept sponsorship from liquor companies or tobacco companies. Desite the potential of considrable financial benefit, FIRST has recognized that those products are fundamentally inconsistent with programs involving underage, impressionable young minds. Those companies have cultivated a corporate culture designed to addict and corrupt the creative and innovative intellectual resources of the next generation. They destroy the human capital of the country for the sake of corporate profits.

So why should Microsoft be treated any differently?




.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Because Microsoft makes a load of money and 'support' education and own most people's software souls already. Alcohol companies and tobacco companies don't already have most of the souls of todays people, youth included.

You can't compare Philip Morris to Microsoft.

Pavan.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

agreed 100%

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I just like being the only software running on-chip... I have enough fun knowing what my own code is doing in the machine.... I don't need to add an operating system (that isn't mine) and umpteen more programmer's code from the O/S into the mix..... :ahh:

Just my 0.52 Rubles. ;)

-q

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I beg to differ show me a statistic that says that more people have computers with windows then people who drink alcohol.

I think that alcohol companies represent a larger market share then Microsoft could ever accomplish. They also have many outreach programs. It is just a fact of life that when companies make loads of money they have to give some away.

I can understand FIRST's reasoning for not taking major partnerships with cigarette and alcohol due to the perception, but not taking on Microsoft for those same reasons is just a silly argument. Just because there is a portion of FIRST students and mentors who dislike Microsoft for whatever reason that a partnership with one of the largest tech companies in the world should be ignored.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Considering the history of how they became one of the largest tech companies in the world, I'm not so sure that's something FIRST students should look up to, considering the emphasis of gracious professionalism within the program.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Admittedly, I don't know very much about the history of the company -- but that said, I can't imagine that Microsoft has committed a corporate sin any worse than many of FIRST's other major sponsors. We're not exactly in the company of saints here.

Microsoft's employees have been an outstanding source of support for our team on many levels and we're really excited to see the company itself becoming more involved in FIRST and its programs.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I'm not so sure about that. Microsoft has been convicted for illegally abusing their monopoly in the US and European Union. They lied in court and were even caught red-handed forging video evidence to back up the lie. I'm sure many of FIRST's corporate sponsors have skeletons in their closets too, but these are some pretty serious "sins" from Microsoft.

Personally, I dislike them because I feel Microsoft is largely responsible for the opinion held by many in the world that software which malfunctions, crashes, doesn't do what it's supposed to, etc. is acceptable. I know many, many other companies contribute to this problem as well, but they're really the ones who convinced the public that this is OK. I don't think any other engineering discipline would tolerate the shoddiness that is often considered acceptable and standard practice in software engineering today. I actually had someone say to me once, "Office crashes on me a few times a week, so why should our product have to be any better than that?" That really ticked me off as an engineer.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

You don't need to invoke imagination. Their corporate sins are a matter of legal record. Only Enron and Standard Oil come to mind as having been more egregiously "corporate" to the exclusion of their customers' interests.

As with any large organization, the people who make up the company are usually much nicer and well-behaved on an individual basis than the combined entity is, but that doesn't change the legitimate distaste many people have for The Microsoft Corporation's behavior as a whole.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Wow! That's some record of corporate sins! The judge's finding begins

"These consolidated civil antitrust actions alleging violations of the Sherman Act, §§ 1 and 2, and various state statutes by the defendant Microsoft Corporation, were tried to the Court, sitting without a jury, between October 19, 1998, and June 24, 1999. The Court has considered the record evidence submitted by the parties, made determinations as to its relevancy and materiality, assessed the credibility of the testimony of the witnesses, both written and oral, and ascertained for its purposes the probative significance of the documentary and visual evidence presented. Upon the record before the Court as of July 28, 1999, at the close of the admission of evidence, pursuant to FED. R. CIV. P. 52(a), the Court finds the following facts to have been proved by a preponderance of the evidence."

and then continues for over 200 pages in the original document format! Jurists are reknowned for verbosity, but even so, 200 pages! :eek:

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I created a new thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=58519) that might be a better venue for discussing the extent to which corporate and personal behavior outside FIRST should impact involvement in the program -- as it appears that's where this discussion is headed. So, that said, please respond to the new thread if you'd like to talk more about that subject and here only if you're talking about the new control system.

Thanks. :)

(Or, y'know, privately message me with your objections and I'll go back to doing my job instead of reading CD. :) )

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I agree that this practice is avoidable but many people would choose not to make the sacrifice for that alternative. People still choose a PC that can work with thousands upon thousands of different hardware and software configurations and yet they will still criticize Microsoft for imperfect compatibility. If you lock down those configurations (like Apple) some people opt for that sacrifice of diversity and price for something a bit more reliable. Even when Microsoft seeks to fix these problems - like with user authentication controls, people complain endlessly. Unfortunately you can't expect everything from Microsoft and complain when they in actuality do a pretty good job at satisfying such a large and diverse group of users.

I would still rather have something that does what I want it to do - even if it crashes from time to time, than something that is incapable or too costly.

People buy devices that are made to work reliably and consistently - like video game consoles. More and more now though you find people altering them to run their own software and upgrade the hardware. This is can be risky, voiding warranties and putting reliability into question, but many people would still choose the freedom of having options with their devices.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

FIRST is always wanting to reach every school in some way, that's always some part of Dean's homework. Teaming up with Microsoft could be one sure fire way to do it, so I don't know why anyone would reject that kind of support. Seems silly to me.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

There seems to have been a lot of discussion and passionate opinions expressed in this thread about the things desired in the new FRC control system.

I want to make sure that everyone who wants to give input about the control system does.
This thread contains a link to an official FIRST survey that you can take to let FIRST know how you feel about the old control system and what needs to be improved upon in the new control system.

Not being directly involved with working on the control system when I was on a team, I can't really answer the questions on the survey. However, I want FIRST to get good results so they can make the best control system possible in the future. So please, programmers, electrical people, take a few minutes and take the survey and discuss the survey in that thread.

* Gets off soapbox *

-- What would be the pros and cons of having different languages like java and c++? I feel comfortable with just using c since thats all we have had so far and i dont really want to learn another language because then that puts me back this year. I think some upgrades on the motion board would be nice though! -- Teekon :)

I was also wondering if any one has tried programming their robot using LabView? -- Teekon

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I think this might be going off track for this thread, but not sure what other related threads it might go with, so i'll just put it here...

I agree that its a good idea to stay with C... it works great for the application.

On your note about LabVIEW, I've used it before, its ok, but, its near impossible to document your code, EVERYTHING is passed by value, the 'code' (pictures) you make get really complicated to follow... but yes, i know the interaction it provides between various sensors, platforms and interfaces (the first thing i did with labVIEW in about 5 minutes from out of the box to application running was flip a switch hooked to a USBdaq, and it sends me an email saying "you hit the switch"), not to mention so simple its scary integration of extremely powerful vision processing.

Other than that, I can't see IFI/FIRST putting a processor big enough to run LabVIEW Embedded. It only runs on 32bit processors like Blackfins, mot PowerPCs, mot ColdFires, etc. While the cost IS comming down for big 32bit dsp-type processors, i don't think its cheap enough yet to happen.

Cool idea though...

-q

p.s. In the defense of lab view... imagine having ONE OF THESE for a coprocessor!!!!!

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Today at Kettering Kick-Off competition's LabView workshop, an un-official revelation was announced to all workshop attendees that the new FRC controller will be the NI CompactRIO platform (http://www.ni.com/pac/crio.htm) and programming will be via LabView.

The official announcement should be out in about two weeks. Details are being developed for training and support for FIRST teams.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I am.... skeptical of this. I just priced out a very basic cRIO system that would barely provide similar outputs to the current RC. It was ~$2500. This is sans some sort of radio system and operator interface, plus you'd still need speed controllers and relays for the motors. The current system from IFI costs less than $1200. It... just doesn't seem very sensible from where I'm sitting at the moment. Nevermind that I wouldn't particularly look forward to programming a robot in straight Labview unless they're giving us the Statechart module and a lot of other fancy add-ons.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

I'm very sure that the new system will not cost over $2500 for just the controller. Obviously there is a high price on this equipment, but the actual cost of production is probably only $200 at most. Same with the IFI controller. Everything at IFI that they sell us are way overpriced, but they monopolize what we can buy, so they can charge us anything they want. Just a rough estimate of a Victor 884. I would say at most $30 of raw materials, the rest is profit.
Actual Cost of IFI control system with parts purchases individually:
RC: 449.95
OI: 349.95
Victor 884: 114.95 * 4 = 458.80
Spike: 34.95 * 4 = 139.80
PWM Cables: 4.99 * 12? = 49.88
RC Radio: 149.95
OI Radio: 149.95

Total: 1748.28

I would estimate actual material cost to be under $200 for everything.

My .02

Also, please don't bash me for my estimate, I'm thinking of it all as just plastic, silicone, copper, and alluminum. Of course you have add in customer service, and everything else.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

It's worth keeping in mind that the important number from FIRST's perspective isn't how much the system costs to a normal consumer, but rather how much it costs to FIRST. If we are in fact getting the cRIO, then it's safe to assume that NI is donating a good portion of the usual cost. Just hope that your students don't drop the thing once you've gotten it, though.
Agreed. Though FIRST is about inspiration, and not technical learning, it's probably beneficial to use a language that students are likely to already know, and/or are likely to run into again in industry. BASIC, C, Java, and maybe even Python are all excellent examples... Labview isn't so much.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Last weekend I was driving by FIRST and I heard something about using 2,000 mailboxes in their latest control system.

You download code by sending it as an attachment (encoded in binary) to myrobot@new-uber-robot-controller-5000.ִ̣com, at which point an embedded speaker on the controller blurts out a "You've got Mail!" message load enough to be heard over even Blair and Grady on Einstein Field.

They've also pioneered a radical new power source for the controller, but that's still top secret until Krispy Kreme announces their new donut factory in Manchester, NH next week. But the most important thing to remember is that the new controller is not a big truck, that you just dump stuff on. It's a series of tubes.

Re: New Robot Control System!
 

Sorry for the mis-information about the controls systems. National Instrument is only growing its partnership with FIRST. I mistook it for more than the info given and took a best guess at the future.