Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Matt,
I like the idea of a competition. I would like to assemble a list of what such a system must have prior to any competition. I am an official old guy and I try to help rookies whenever and wherever I can. In the past we had some pretty easy to use hardware that an inexperienced mentor and students could take out of the box, look at a simple block wiring diagram, start adding wires and have a robot driving in an hour or two. Granted, it didn't have the computing power some of the new software geeks wanted and it had some other limitations that were solved by the manufacturers. However, it had a few good qualities as well. It was small, lightweight, easy to use, easy to control and had sufficient tally lights to tell you what was happening.
|
According to our students, I'm also an official old guy (I don't get it) but I think I have a few good years left
I have had extensive experience with the IFI controllers and the current cRio controllers and I wholeheartedly agree. The new system is vastly over-complicated for our use case. As far as the new computing power... Eh. In terms of raw power, yes it's more capable, but we burn up a good ton of that with CAN, TCP/IP, the VxWorks RTOS, etc. At the end of the day, I don't think it really works out to be much of a difference. I feel we have the same challenge in getting the thing working with sensors and vision tracking that we had in 2006, only now everything is more expensive, and requires more configuration. And because we're so far from the bare metal, I feel a lot of the impact is lost. Students no longer have to understand why a pot or encoder works, just how to type "Encoder" in to their programming language and have magic numbers show up. What kind of problem solving do you learn from being handed premade solutions?
(Yes, FIRST is not about teaching engineering it's about Inspiration, but what is so inspiring about learning to expect someone to do your job for you?)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
So here is my list...
1. Out of the box it has to work for rookies running default software or at least is easily loaded with default software without any other programming in less than one half hour.
2. Can control Jags or Victors, Spikes or whatever control devices someone wants to include to drive motors and such.
3. Can run down to 4 volts input.
4. Has imbedded wireless controls of some sort.
5. Has sufficient software power to process sensors, cameras, etc. and development includes C++, Java, Labview or any other development software in general use.
6. Has at least a serial port and an ethernet port, several would be ideal.
7. Has sufficient I/O for at least 8 or 16 PWM, relay, solenoid, digital and analog ports and/or can be simply expanded for the I/O needed (i.e. plugin modules).
8. I/O is easily accomplished without sophisticated tooling.
9. Is a mature product or product line available to all teams, domestic and foreign.
10. Always of interest is something that is low cost, or is manufactured by a company interested in donating sufficient quantities to help our teams keep costs low.
Please keep in mind that team expansion is increasing by leaps and bounds and could easily reach 8-10,000 in this decade. Please feel free to add to this list your requirements.
|
I think the architecture of the IFI system is pretty close to this. It was much more self contained. I think a similar structure with more horsepower (but not so much more that we need all the support systems the cRio has) and a simpler development environment would be ideal. Especially if we did away with the silly licensing issues we always seem to have every January.
On top of that, a big requirement from me is that it be more robust, and i don't mean in terms of environmental conditions. I mean high school students plugging it in backwards and short circuiting it and getting swarf (still laughing) in it. I think the blue bits are quite well designed, based on the fact that my students haven't managed to kill them yet
.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
I would be remiss if I failed to thank our current suppliers for their continued support to this organization, especially NI, IFI, TI and all the other suppliers who make this competition fun for our students and challenging for our mentors.
|
While I am somewhat critical of the system we have now, I'd like to make it clear I don't think it's a failure or oversight of anyone working on the system. Engineering constraints are a bear, and I think everyone involved has done a great job, I just think they may have been starting at a serious disadvantage with the wrong platform for the job. So I also thank the suppliers and engineers for their help.
Matt