All I'm saying is this:
-The division of IFI that produces the First components is heavily involved with FIRST.
-I agree that we need a system upgrade for more auto-heavy tasks. But my point was that it is part of the Challenge to use what is given to you, and if your complaining that its not good enough, you're not rising to the challenge.
-IFI has confirmed an entirely new control system for 2004. THIS IS NOT A RUMOR. I and at least 4 local teams have contacted IFI directly and each time they have confirmed that we are receiving an entirely new system next year. My prediction? I'm guessing they're going to use a BasicX. They'll probably stick with a BASIC based system, or something simple because every single (predicted 1000) team will have less than 2 months to learn this new language. Many of you big teams out there say "scoff, we have 20 programmers, and at least one of them knows C, or Java, or something or other" and you don't take into consideration that there could be well over 500 other teams out there that have no clue how to code in C or Java and would have a big issue on their hands with this type of shift.
I'm also curious as to whether or not IFI will change what type of PWM/Relay we use. I'm hoping that the Max amperage will be increased again, and that we may
receive an even beefier drive motor than the CIM next year. Possibly a larger battery. I don't know, but I just emailed IFI asking what they could tell me, if anything, about the new system. FIRST claimed that information would be posted about this a while back, but I haven't seen a change yet.
This also raises quite a large bump in our workshop schedule. A major change in the system (electronics included) would ruin the fact that we have been planning our control workshops to take place only weeks away from now.