[NotInControl]

Originally Posted by Bill_B

Are we looking at a complete transition to the new control system in 2015? Or will there be a transition period in which teams can use either new or old systems? If not, what are people planning to do with all their obsolete cRio, etc stuff?

As a Alpha Team Mentor, I can understand your concerns of moving to a "New" Control system.

Note, this isn't the first time FIRST has done this transition. We had this transistion from the old IFI system to the NI cRIO 8-slot 6 years ago.

That was a drastic change, but allowed for more creativity. The IFI system was slower, used RF, like an RC car, instead of 802.11 for communications, could only use an alalog camera like the cmu2 camera. There were two ways to program it, a graphical language or Ansi C (not natively object oriented, like we have now with C++/Java etc.). It had a microchip processor in it, so you had to use the MPLAB IDE for text based programming. The Crio opened up many different languages, and additional capabilities for teams.

Please be assured FIRST is taking every possible measure to make the transition for teams to the new RoboRio to be seamless.

This should be a welcome change, from the hardware side of things its linux, its faster, it combines the crio and digital side car in one unit, and it cheaper!

From the software side of things, the WPI libraries and Labview should have a very similar interface as to what you are acustom too now with the current cRIO.

Also, I noticed your location is in CT. My team is hosting the Groton District Event, in Groton CT on March 8th and 9th. As an Aplha testing team, I will be working on displaying the new 2015 hardware, and have it powering our 2013 robot. The idea is to let teams get to see it, touch it, and get a early introduction to the RoboRios capabilities while at the event. If you happen to drop by, please look for me if you have any additional questions.



Hope this helps,
Kevin