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Re: cRIO, has it 'upped the game'?
We aren't doing anything this year that we couldn't have done before... in fact, in many ways we are doing less than a couple years back when we had a mecanum drive with four PID controllers reading encoders and managing wheel speed combined with camera tracking.
Labview has allowed us to develop some nice graphs, charts and display software for the driver station, but we had done that already using labview and the feedback from the IFI controller.
Using labview on the robot has made some things, such as drag'n'drop PID controllers easier... which, while good in the sense that it makes it easier to implement also means that the students don't get the experience of building and tweaking their own PID code.
Wireless programming is nice, but wouldn't have been too difficult to implement on an IFI controller if we felt it was that important. The biggest upside to the new control system seemed to me to be real-time video feedback from the robot... something that has yet to materialize as far as competition goes.
I guess my feeling is that we've stuck a 600Hp Corvette engine into a Pontiac Firefly. Yeah it's cool, and it sounds really great when you rev it, but for the most part it is overkill and the full power of the engine (or cRio) is unlikely to be used. In many ways (size, weight, cost) it is actually a step backwards. I thought the IFI controller was a very appropriate tool for the job we needed it to do and was disappointed to see it dropped... but the students seem happy enough with the new system regardless of whether or not it has "upped the game" for us.
Jason
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