[gblake]

Maybe some of us folks on the right coast can ship a simple competition ready version of the default software to our buddies on the left coast. I think I and one or two friends could cobble it together.

Should a team ever actually use it in a competition I believe that they would need to be certain that the tournament judges know that the code is something from the public domain that the team is simply using (without modification/improvement) rather than something they developed.

For example, Team 3040 has already implemented, using EasyC in a competition template, 4-motor tank drive plus using sending xmitter channel 5 and 6 commands to a couple of PWM outputs. With a little work some other simple drive configurations could be implemented.

The resulting "source" file and hex file could be shared. To download the hex file into the robot a team would still have to acquire at least a programming module (aka programming dongle) and the free software tools for downloading files into the microcontroller.

I can point teams to a web site that leads them to the free software tools they need. I think VexLabs sells the "programming modules" individually, and I know a friend who can build and sell at a fair price, a substitute device that can also fill that role. Of course, the EasyC Programming Kit can save you a lot of trouble by supplying these things in one transaction...

If someone wants to confirm (through the official FVC Q&A) that this would a legal way for teams to acquire their software (maybe the software source would need to be formally described in each robot's BOM); we could probably help the Rookie teams get over this bump in their roads to inspiration.

Blake