Quote:
Originally Posted by seanwitte
How many different ways are there to write the code to drive straight or integrate the gyro?
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I don't know, but it would appear to me that FIRST
wants us to rewrite that same "drive straight" code year after year - as evidenced by the fact that they ban use of any software written by a team in a prior year. If they allowed teams to build up a solid software base and expand on it year after year, maybe things would be different? Our team could probably be a lot further along software-wise if our kids didn't have to start with default code each year and rewrite the same drive code that they've written for 3 years in a row now.
Keep in mind our robots are not nearly as homogeneous as LEGO or Vex robots. With so many different drive systems and feedback mechanisms, it's much more difficult to come up with a drop-in "drive straight" module that will just work for everyone. I think to some extent this will always be true. If FIRST provides these higher-level abstractions, it's quite likely that we'll have to simply shift our time from writing a custom modules that do exactly what we need to trying to figure out how to brow-beat the supplied module into behaving like we want.