View Single Post
  #34   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 24-03-2009, 15:44
Kingofl337's Avatar
Kingofl337 Kingofl337 is offline
You didn't see anything....
AKA: Adam
FRC #0501 (Power Knights)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Rookie Year: 1998
Location: Manchester, NH
Posts: 861
Kingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond reputeKingofl337 has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to Kingofl337
Re: cRIO, has it 'upped the game'?

I believe the cRio / Jaguars in general has upped our game. We were able to run 7 PID loops updating at 5ms on our robot without the cRio even breaking a sweat. With the help of vision assistant to calibrate lighting, we were able to get our robot consistently scoring in auto mode using the camera to track/hunt our opponents. Anyone watching or that went Chesapeake can attest to this. Our swerve drive was alot more responsive with the cRio as well.

On a down side the system feels unpolished overall. It has so many parts and pieces that can lead to unexplained issues it's hard to know were to start debugging. Our team used Windriver, and while it worked OK, sometimes it would refuse to connect to the cRio after a reboot. Having to manually change the path to Deploy user code was annoying. We would sometimes get kernel errors if we didn't reboot the cRio between testing versions of the code. We have also been adversely affected by other teams shutting down mid match for no apparent reason, and in a game where a dead robot means death this can be hard to swallow. Was it a Driver Station ESD Issue? Did the E-stop connections come loose? Did the Bridge Reboot? Is the connection to the Camera Loose? Did the code crash? Is a crimp on one of the RJ-45s Bad? Why has the robot run all weekend and then suddenly stop running?

The old IFI system was simple, give it power and plug in the radio. I don't think I would want to go back to a 8-bit PIC, but I wouldn't complain if they released another all in one unit.
__________________
FIRST Team 501 PowerKnights - Mentor
FIRST Team 40 Checkmate - Mentor Alum
FIRST Team 146 Blue Lightning - Alumni
Reply With Quote