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Unread 26-03-2007, 23:54
EricVanWyk EricVanWyk is offline
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Re: Programming jokes

The first time I taught programming for FIRST, I took a very hands-off/trust-the-student approach. I have tried to maintain that approach over the years, but now I insist that they put the robot up before they put code in.

It was early in the build season, and the new programmers were just getting to learn the system. As practice, I asked them to put a low pass filter on the motor outputs and then experiment with different parameters.

At one point, the parameter put the low passes' knee at .05Hz. At the same time, the variables were accidentally being initialized to all 0 (or was it all 254?). The result was that the robot would turn on, spin, charge.

Without fail, it charged me. It did not matter where I was, it would always find me and hit me. Fortunately, the robot had a few really nice foot/hand holds. I would jump on and hit the main breaker before it hit the wall.