[apalrd]

A few new comments after IRI:


Stop Button Override wait: This is annoying. We broke our USB hub, but since we only have two USB devices (gamepad and Cypress board), we just hooked everything right up to the Classmate and unplugged the stop button. We never use it anyway since it kills the code on the robot, and the space bar works just as well. BUT, now we have to wait 20 seconds in addition to the FMS lock time to tether the robot after a match (this is especially time critical during eliminations). The old IFI system could be run without a competition dongle with no problem (if it needed to be disabled, you could just unplug the tether cable or the power cable when on radio)

Wait for code when downloading code: Sometimes I need to download code FAST. Something like an autonomous change between elim. matches. I already know I have to wait for the robot to boot, and wait for the code to build, but I also have to wait for the existing code on the robot to load for some reason. I have no knowledge of if it is loaded or not. I can tell if the robot has booted by looking at the RSL, but there is no indication of code. I could tether it to the Classmate, but that is busy clearing an FMS lock.

Robot crash when downloading code: I experience this every now and then. For no real reason, the robot crashes and reboots (loss of comm and code on the Classmate, RSL goes out, a minute or so later it is back up). I didn't notice this much during the season, but had a huge issue with it at MARC (good thing the FMS lost power so I had like 15 minutes of waiting to fix it, the robot crashed about 4 times in a row before working)

A few plusses:

I really liked the use of wireless on the practice field at IRI. They gave us our radio encryption code to program into our existing DS radio, and let us use it without changing the radio on the robot.

A few suggestions:

1. Don't re-build and re-download everything every time. I look at what it does, and it re-builds the ENTIRE WPIlib every time I make a change to one file. I already talked to you about this one at the championships. Just reminding you.

2. Some sort of cRio emulator for LabVIEW (I heard the C++ guys get one) would be really nice. I mean, I know I can write it myself, but then I have to worry about what happens if the WPIlib changes next year.

3. Dual-booting Linux and XP on the Classmate could provide a locked down environment, plus it could be optimized to boot fast and run Driver Station. The XP portion could run the development environment.
This causes two problem:
First, you can't use WinXP drivers for gamepads and other stuff (the blue DS had this same issue so I wouldn't worry about it)
Second you have to build the Dashboard for Linux and Windows.

4. Give us the patch for the Cypress issue.