[StevenB]

Sure, if I was designing the FRC control system from the ground up with no restrictions, there are a lot of things I would do differently. But if an industry leader came to me and offered millions of dollars worth of hardware and software - hardware and software which is used by professional engineers in numerous settings - I'd find a way to make it work. And I believe that's what FIRST has done. It would be easy to criticize FIRST and suggest that they've sold out to NI or WindRiver, but the reality is that this kind of partnership is exactly their mission. Their goal is not to create an awesome robot control system, but rather to show high school students that engineering is an exciting and attainable career. If that includes using proprietary tools common in industry, then so be it.

I'm a big fan of open source. I run Linux on my desktop and use it almost exclusively. I've even helped write code for open-source projects. But I'm also a big fan of some proprietary software, including LabVIEW - and there's no way I would have gotten this experience apart from FIRST.

To take a quick example: In my university's electronics lab, we've got a set of standard lab equipment (Agilent multimeter, power supply, and waveform generator, Tektronix scope) with PCs running LabVIEW. Because I've been using LabVIEW since my FLL days eleven years ago, it was a simple matter to connect the equipment to the PC and create some cool VIs for my lab work. I can characterize motors, create Bode plots, test transistors, and a thousand other things - just by writing a simple VI. None of my classmates know how to do this; in fact, none of my professors know how to do this.

How many college students can say they've been using LabVIEW for eleven years?