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Originally Posted by Neal Probert
I'm thinking FIRST should allow us to choose from a variety of robot controllers, even choose one of our own.
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The technical complication of this far exceeds the bennifits. Essentianlly, you would have to create some sort of generic slot type interface. With multiple I/O pins and voltage lines. This is because every microcontroller or DSP has a different pin out. It is a safety concern if a user written routine has direct control over PWM or relay outputs, therefore we must talk to Innovation FIRST's microcontrollers before information is sent to the PWMS or relays.
Because of this, each microcontroller or DSP a team would like to use would need to have a custom PCB made so they could interface with the generic slot.
I would like to hear some actual reasons as to why we should move away from the current microcontrollers. In engineering, you decide what products you are going to use based on requirements. Our requirement is that the microcontoller has to be low cost, have enough I/O, easilly programmed, have enough internal/external storage space, and be able to loop a default program before the time out (~ 25ms, IIRC).
I think the microcontoller IFI chose perfectly met their requirements.