|
Re: How Did You Learn How To Program?
I started learning LabVIEW almost two years ago, in the summer of 2008.
Actually, my introduction to dataflow languages was with LOGO!soft, for the Siemen's LOGO! PLC.
It was quite simple: You had inputs, outputs, and shift registers. (as well as a real-time clock) Almost everything was boolean, except for the two analog inputs. There were no loops or if statements; the code simply repeated about 100 times a second.
I happened to be using it to create a half-size driving version of an FRC robot. (I still have that robot, rebuilt and improved several times. It now has a full FRC control system on it, and we're planning on converting it to a mecanum drive.)
Anyways, going from LOGO!soft, LabVIEW was still difficult. To help learn it, the first thing I did was take my programs in LOGO!soft and convert them to LabVIEW. To do this, I also had to create some of the LOGO! functions that didn't already exist in the LabVIEW 8.5 Student edition (it came in the 2008 KOP). They were the latching relay, flip-flop, on-delay, off-delay, and rising/falling edge.
I then had to figure out what was something USEFUL that I could create with LabVIEW. I started working on a robot simulator, of sorts. Given the speeds of the left and right drivetrains (in pixels per iteration), it would map the robot's path (or rather, the path of both drivetrains) on a picture indicator.
It was pretty neat, and I spent some months working on that.
I think I also played with navigation algorithms, working directly off a map of a field. (In this case, "field" means an image with obstacles drawn on it.)
Before I started using LabVIEW, I was certainly a novice programmer, but I had been learning Java in 8th grade. (I got a bit sick of all the compiler problems I was having, though, and had primarily lost intrest.)
In December of 2008, we got the early control system shipment, and I learned the FRC Framework. I had the robot in my room for a couple of weeks, so that I could work on it throughout christmas break. (I had the control system bench tests done by the end of three days.) We were the only team at our kickoff who had a robot running with the new control system. (I was with 2557 at that time, but I've since started another team.)
By kickoff, you could say I knew LabVIEW and the control system, and I started transitioning into teaching people.
EDIT:
Once major resource that has helped me is LabVIEW for Everyone
I started learning purely from the LabVIEW help, and then used some other resources like LabVIEW for Dummies (which appears to be defunct now).
If I had known about all the resources available (say, if I had looked on NI.com), then I probably would have had an easier start.
__________________
-- Marshal Horn
Last edited by kamocat : 08-04-2010 at 03:12.
|