Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle
Personally, I'd find it much more useful if some of this energy were directed into a technical wish-list. Then both FIRST and the staff working on the project could measure the current 09 project against various expectations.
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I'm a marketing student (for 13 more days, anyway), but I tend to serve as the technical mentor on my team. We're not going to dethrone WildStang as autonomous mode legends anytime soon, so our needs are more basic. Among the things I'd like to see in 2009:
1) A PDF on the FIRST website that says, in essence, "If you did X under the IFI control system, now do Y with the cRIO". Tethering, downloading code, connecting the radios, connecting joysticks, enabling the robot--the easy stuff.
2) If I don't bring a laptop within five miles of the cRIO, I'd like it to be able to be wired up, turned on, and able to drive a robot around. Maybe it won't be as swanky as El Nitro expressing its displeasure for Soulja Boy in Atlanta, but it will, at the bare minimum, work.
3) A method, however ghettofab, of starting and stopping multiple robots at the same time without a proper field controller. I have yet to attend an off-season event in the state of Florida where the field has worked perfectly, whether for software quirks, hardware maladies, or half the field flooded with four inches of water; the ability to chuck the field controls and just get on with the show is crucial. (For reference, the software quirk was Mission Mayhem 2007, where the field wouldn't make sound effects; our DJ simply invented his own and played them at the appropriate times. Hardware maladies was Robot Rodeo 2004, where we couldn't even start a match; we dumped autonomous and had drivers stick their hands up at the end of the match.
Half the field flooded...
well...)
4) Some tutorials on implementing popular sensors on the cRIO would be beneficial, since it seems like a lot of the great white papers here and elsewhere based around the IFI system will be of limited usefulness. (Encoders, gyros, accelerometers, CMUcam if it returns...)
5) If it's to the point it can be shown off, try getting in touch with some of the off-season events that have workshops to give the system at least a little more exposure ahead of January. Even sending one knowledgeable person with a small robot (a la
1519 or
102) in their carry-on would go a long way. (I bet a dollar someone will float you a battery for the purpose.)
6) For the sake of those rolling with mecanums, the ability to run four encoders is important. (Perhaps a few more if FIRST ever has another game like Aim High where teams would like to know wheel speed in places other than the drive system.)
7) When selecting an AP for the KOP (and please, do settle on one lest we have to hunt down fifteen manuals for different teams at events without the aid of internet access), think small. Maybe it won't be as small as the IFI radios, but the D-Link router we saw at the Sneak Peek is just a wee bit too much on the bulky side. (While you're at it, please let us know if there are any gamekilling mounting configurations for the AP of choice; such information was crucial to getting the 2007 IFI radio to work better.)
8) Perhaps a stretch, but what about a no-autonomous switch on the robot? I can think of at least one case this season where such a switch on the robot would've spared a team a yellow card. (The team ran their autonomous, which hit the far wall a little hard and forced a match restart. Since they couldn't reprogram their autonomous in the time given, they went right ahead and clocked the wall again. Yellowcardsville.)
9) One LED on the driver station indicating Big Serious Errors (loss of radio link, no/low main battery, software error, internal errors) is necessary. With the display on the new driver station, I don't think you need the individual LEDs of the IFI OI, but some light to make you look at the display for the serious error would be useful. (Of course, if you'd like to give us separate LEDs for those big errors, feel free.)
10) Sounds basic, but please make sure we have four nice places to screw down each thing to mount. I've seen some suspect mounting in the past, and I'd rather avoid any such issues now even if you
can run the cRIO over with a Hummer.
Just my two cents; your mileage may vary.