[Alan Anderson]

Many of us don't see a big benefit -- but that's because we already knew how to use the IFI system to its full capabilities.

The FPGA in the cRIO provides features right out of the box that used to require adding files to the default code, modifying the interrupt service routine, and working with some fiddly configuration details. With the built-in encoder, accelerometer, and gyro support, the only add-on programming we used this year was the Driver Station display library.

For the teams lacking significant experience with programming embedded controllers, this year's FRC control system and development environment has indeed permitted them to do things that they wouldn't have been able to achieve easily with a PIC and MPLAB. Give it a couple of years, and I think you'll see LabVIEW VIs and C++ classes made available that will blow the doors off anything even Kevin Watson came up with.