Controller Vintage.

Are the OIs and RCs made for 2003 different from 2000-2002?
Some teams at the Cal games had a bunch of trouble in competition (but not when running the machine alone). THese problems were fixed by switching out either the OI, the RC or both. The 'bad' unit then appeared to work fine when not hooked up through the arena controller.

Anyone have any insight on this? Maybe Tony from InnovationFIRST? One though is the OI might have a bad program.

[Andy Baker]

Not that I am Tony's spokesman or anything...

Yes, the controllers are different. Innovation First provides upgrades here.. A 2002 controller had to be upgraded in order to operate for the 2003 game.

We did this for our 2002 controller, but I don't know the specifics of what part of the program needed to be upgraded. I think that it was a combination of the autonomous mode addition in 2003 and how the field controllers interfaced with the robots during this time.

Anyway... yes... all of those 2002 controllers (robot and operator) needed to be updated if they were going to be used for the 2003 game.

Andy B.

[KenWittlief]

I thnk the only difference in the robot controller is that it allowed you to display a user defined variable on the operator interface

and the pre 2003 ones wont do that

our robot controller was damaged during the practice matches at the canadian regional, and the guy from Innovation FIRST said we could use our spare (from last year)

it worked fine for us.

I dont know if the operator interface unit is different between '02 and '03

[xplod1236]

Yes, the OI for 2003 is different from the one for 2002. We went to Kettering this past weekend, and we couldn't find the OI from 2003, so we used an '02 one. We ran the robot before Kettering, and everything worked fine, including the atonymous mode. But when the OI was hooked up through the arena controller, the big blue/red light was blinking. The OI confirmed a valid Tx/Rx, but our atonymous mode did not work properly. The lights on the robot turned on, but the robot did not move. The rest of the match was normal. For the rest of the day, we borrowed an OI from another team (not sure which one), and it all worked fine. The OI from 2002 did communicate with the RC, but it did not work properly with the '03 arena controllers.

[dez250]

as i helped run the IRI scoring system and match system, i learned about the problems with the 2002 and prior controllers trying to work with the 2003 arena comp ports. the bot will work like normal under controller mode, where your drivers drive it, but before the match starts, through all of autonomous mode, the station (drivers booth) light will flash and auton mode wont work on your bot. It has to do with the controller software, and how the 2003 OI's are designed to work with auton, as the prior ones weren't made for that purpose.
~Mike