What is the easiest way to create a custom driverstation dashboard?

[feverittm]

Java folks,

I have been around FRC as a mentor now for two seasons and have seen a number of really good and inventive dashboards on team's driver's stations. While not a requirement for competition, they can be an advantage if developed well from a systematic point of view.

Now to my real question. From what I have seen of the custom dashboard development flow, the new dashboard is created in labview with the controls added and connected to a special 'dashboard' datatype that packages/unpackages the dashboard information that goes between the robot and the driver's station.

This packed datatype seems very hard to manage and is the main reason that we have not tried to develop our own dashboard. Our mentors have the necessary Labview experience to understand the mechanics of the remainder of the labview development, but the datatype seems too clunky.

Is there an easier was to manage this datatype? If your robot is programmed in labview then this seems to be very straightforward, while using other languages it seems much more difficult.

Anyone have a good java workflow for dashboard development they would like to share?

Enjoy!

[Joe Ross]

Last year, the Smart Dashboard was introduced, which makes it easier. You could also use the ZomB dashboard.

[Greg McKaskle]

The dataype is indeed the difficult element in the dashboard. Start small, and with some comments and systematic edits, I think you'll find that it is doable.

During the offseason, give the dashboard a shot, and I think you'll find that it is pretty straightforward. Plus, who knows. It may get even easier.

Greg McKaskle

[Robby Unruh]

Last year we used ZomB dashboard. It wasn't too hard to set up, and it looked pretty nice with our taco-shaped speedometer.

[feverittm]

Thanks all for the replies.

Regarding Smart Dashboard - that is what we ended up using. Just not as nice or as developed as I would have liked. It requires us to re-load it every time.
But this is always an option, especially for development (very easy to add more information on the screen).

Regarding Zombie - We tried this initially, but couldn't get it to work. Just too many issues. Could easily have changed and gotten better later.

The real reason we never has the initiative to fix things was that in competition our drivers/operators never look at the screen! We have a very good driver (Awsome Griffin) and maybe were a little spoiled. If we could make the information more intuitive then we might change things.

Enjoy!

[byteit101]

Originally Posted by feverittm

Regarding Zombie - We tried this initially, but couldn't get it to work. Just too many issues. Could easily have changed and gotten better later.

#1 its spelled ZomB, not Zombie (pronounced the same, though)
#2 yes, its probably changed quite a bit since you tried it (By March I was annoyed with the February versions, I fix stuff constantly). When did you try it? I am in the process of updating a bunch of stuff to make it easier, simpler, etc... I'm planning on adding a few more updates later this week, so after I publish that (thurs or friday), try installing & playing with it again, and if you still have issues, please let me know about it (I can only fix what I know about!)

@Robby Unruh: Yay for taco-meters! Glad to see someone else that appreciates it...