Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

It's cheaper and lighter. What more could you ask for?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=96268 could be of help.

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

Lighter, smaller over-all foot print, ability to operate from 9V to 30V vs the old cRio's 19V - 30V, lack of dip switches, double the memory and a few other nifty features.

He's a white paper that outlines the differences: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=97702

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

Thanks!

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alfredth/arc...the-robot.aspx

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but my team currently programs in Java, so does this mean that we have to learn a new language to be able to use the Kinect?

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

The Kinect data is accessible from Java and all other languages.

Similar to the dashboard, there is a process running on the DS laptop which is written in C#. For extreme customization, that portion is open for teams to experiment with.

Greg McKaskle

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

I accidentally destroyed the cRIO FRC II thread reference by Dustin and Palardy earlier.

I restored it from cache here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=97702

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

Faster connection times?

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

And how would robots respond to such expert "input"? Perhaps it would look something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOWYVT5xABA

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

For people who don't know, the Kinect is not only used for playing Xbox 360 games with gestures.
A large group of hobbyists, developers, university students, and organizations have "hacked"* into the Kinect and utilized its capabilities as a cheap 3D depth sensor. Microsoft has recognized the potential of this movement and released an official Software Development Kit (SDK) so that people can more easily interact with the Kinect's data.

Here are some examples of what people have done, which might spark some ideas for FRC robots! :)

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/r...c-kinect-hacks

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/kinect+hacks

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

Did anyone else notice the cRIO 2 only has one ethernet port?

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

Yup.

It really only needs one port though, as a large majority of teams only use one port and the open port usually becomes a good place for unwanted things to hide.

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

Yeah, the one port on the cRIO II can go to the radio, and the camera can go to the radio too. Many teams just get the camera image just for the driver station; the ones who want to use it on the cRIO can get it through the network. :]

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

Remember that you also need to post any beta information on the FIRST forums that you discuss here.

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

The jump from Java to C#, if you decide to make it to take advantage of more code samples, is not a large one. In fact most people I have talked to find it easier to go from Java to C# than the other way. There are C# for Java programmers materials available as well. One of my favorites is http://www.robmiles.com/c-yellow-boo...ook%202009.pdf I know teachers who use both Java and C# in the same courses. Switching to C# after the AP exam in order to create XBOX games using XNA is pretty common as well.

Re: [BB] Something to end your week
 

To add to the C#/Java, they appear to me to be VERY similar syntaxically, with the differences primarily in the library code.

(I've never been a fan of either language, but that's probably because my embedded programming background is used to working without classes and dynamic memory allocation, and I believe that for highly iterative, deterministic systems such as FRC robots, classes and event-driven systems are probably unnecessary and not always helpful).

I'm a fan of the Kinect as a useful cheap robot sensor. However, its current implementation is not as a useful robot sensor, but as an unuseful driver station sensor. If it were to be on the robot end, it would be infinitely more useful than it is right now. I see many teams attempting to drive their robots with the Kinect, which to me is dangerous for everyone involved.

I'll add these words of advice to everyone
DO NOT TRY TO DRIVE YOUR ROBOT WITH A KINECT. ITS A BAD IDEA. DON'T DO IT.