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Unread 04-05-2013, 08:44
Gdeaver Gdeaver is offline
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Re: NI releasing/designing new controller for FRC

So a little 8 bit controller with no fpu, no fpga, no native lan, no RTOS, and etc etc etc, can replace what we have now. Every team has the expertise to implement a low level ISR and can drop down and write directly to the hardware at the register level when needed? Your going to take a 9th grader and throw that at him? I think allot of people do not realize the power we now have available to us. Even the old IFI controller had two 8 bit pics in it. The vexters at least have an arm chip to play with. The only way teams accomplished complex things with the old IFI solution was some excellent low level code done by Kevin Watson. I can't believe the number of people that want to go backwards. There is a place for an Arduino in First. One of our students used an Uno and some leds to make a heads up targeting system for the driver. Got an award for it. We are using a Uno to read a 3 axis accelerometer, gyro, and magnetometer to make an IMU. Reading the 9 16 bit values over I2C and doing a bunch of triangle math is saturating the Uno. Yes, Arduinos do have a place in first. They make good coprocessors.