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Unread 05-06-2010, 19:36
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AKA: John Novak
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Re: The Age before AndyMark

Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesCH95 View Post
BASIC Stamp IFI robot controller... which doesn't have negative numbers, let alone trig functions.
Actually, the Basic Stamp did/does have trig functions of sorts. In 1999 we built our first three wheeled robot with only the rear wheel steered. Our software group attacked the problem of controlling the speeds of the front wheels by calculating the circumference of each wheels path and setting it's speed relative to the distance to travel. It took weeks to solve all the overflow issues but the result was full of trig and mathematically correct.

We have been unable to recreate that algorithm in MPLab/C18 or the cRio with the same success. We resorted to using a PC algorithm to create a lookup table off-line to be able to accomplish the same thing.

AndyMark has been extremely helpful in providing parts that fit our needs at prices that are a fraction of their cost from other sources. I agree with Chris Elston that we have saved thousands of dollars over the years they have served us.