FRC Java on Mac OS X
 

Hi everyone,

I've heard from other robotics members that this is the best place to go for help, which I need a lot of. I never really thought of myself as on the robotics team at my school, but I did occasionally come to help out with mechanical things since I have friends on the team. I can program well and most of my friends know that, but I wasn't really interested in being on the program team because of the people on it. Evidentially, the programming team is being extremely secretive and blatantly refuses to test coding, so the head of our robotics team asked me to program the robot.

I feel fairly confident about programming the robot in Java, since I already know how to program in Java and all of the documentation seems easy enough to understand. What I cannot seem to figure out, is how to connect to the cRIO on my Mac so that I can upload the program to the robot.

The cRIO might not even have the right image on it, but I don't know how I can update that either. I tried to connect and set up a network (Netbeans even said I was on the right subnet), but it just won't connect. I would prefer to connect to it over Mac because that's what I prefer, but I also have Windows XP and 7 running on parallels on my computer, so I could connect with that too. I haven't been able to find any information about connecting to the cRIO on Mac, and the only information I've been able to find about imaging the cRIO requires LabView, which no one even seems to know where it is.

Please help me by pointing me in the right direction or telling me how to connect to the cRIO. This is very frustrating. I tried to setup a network over ethernet with a router and made my computer the host, but it didn't work. I even tried using a cross over cable, but Netbeans refuses to connect.

Sorry that my post is so long, but I figure it's better to articulate all the struggles I'm having now rather than being asked later.

Thank you ver much

Re: FRC Java on Mac OS X
 

I don't think any of the cRIO stuff was made to run on a Mac
However, u may want to either:
1. Contact National Instruments to see if they have a solution
2. FTPing into the cRIO

Re: FRC Java on Mac OS X
 

I have generally had little trouble using my Macbook Pro to deploy code to the cRIO since FRC Java was released last year. The only drawbacks are that the cRIO imaging tool and Driver Station are Windows-only, but we run both from the Classmate. If your team competed in a regional this year, they had the correct cRIO image (v28 required to pass Inspection).

You need to set your Mac to a static IP address of 10.XX.YY.Z where:
XX are the first 2 digits of your team's number
YY are the last 2 digits of your team's number
Z is a number greater than 6 (so you don't conflict with static IP addressess of the cRIO, radio, DS, etc.)
Subnet Mask should be 255.0.0.0 (although you seem to have this part right)

To check if you're connected to the cRIO, open Terminal and type:
ping 10.XX.YY.2 (IP address of the cRIO if imaged correctly)
where XX.YY is your team number

You also need to set your Team # in Netbeans:
Netbeans --> Preferences --> FRC Configuration tab --> Fill in the Team Number box

Good luck and hope this helps!

Re: FRC Java on Mac OS X
 

The only other thing to try off the bat is to disable the Mac's firewall.

If this doesn't help, please post the run log.