Controlling a Car with the cRio

[LightWaves1636]

It was never driven on the road....EVER.

It was all done in NI's parking lot and then once they were done filming, they took it a part and put it on a demo board. It was even shown off at FIRST World Championships last year. In fact the car is still in the parking garage sitting there like a rock. (a beaten one, but still).

There were safety precautions in place(NI Legal would have flipped if they didn't), just cause it's not shown in the video doesn't mean it isn't there. The main objective was to inspire people to do creative projects and show what can be done with NI Hardware and LabVIEW; the reason they used the "FRC Control System"(and I use this loosely) was to motivate FRC teams to do more off-season projects, thus the NI Booth at FWC. It didn't have to be a car, it could be something else that NI wants to see teams think of on their own like a t-shirt cannon robot or a soda dispensing robot.

Also I'm pretty sure they used an actual cRIO, not the FIRST modified one. (Pay attention, did you see the FIRST Logo on the cRIO, no, the full powered cRIO is on there) But they did use the PDB, Digital Sidecar, and other parts that are familiar in FIRST so that students can go "Hey, we have those parts, it is possible to use them for other projects than just the FRC Robot". Remember, the FRC cRIO is not the real cRIO. cRIOs are quite wickedly awesome (the real ones, not the FRC ones.) - if it's awesome enough to be used on aircrafts, than cool, why not projects that are just pure fun

or even projects with a purpose. Check this out, FPGA and cRIO running vehicles that allows the blind to drive.
http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-11443
http://www.romela.org/blinddriver/Bl...iver_Challenge

BEAR
http://labviewrobotics.wordpress.com...of-all-trades/

Also, FYI, FRC code was not used for this project. Just because you see a CIM Motor, the FRC PDB, and other familiar parts doesn't mean they solely used FRC stuff, this wasn't a project that revolved around FRC.

Also it's a fun video to show off a fun project. Although I'm more favored towards their use of NI DAQ to play video games with real guns (or rubber bands) or playing Super Mario with just your eyes.

Lastly, Mythbusters, even Adam & Jamie admit that all they do is slap things together, do what they can, do what they hope works, and see if it works plus Jaime cannibalized a RC Car to put theirs together. They didn't start using NI Hardware(Yes, Mythbusters uses NI Hardware now) until the Two Bullets Physics Problem project (which by the way, they used a cRIO) - they love their NI DAQ.