Jaguars vs Victors

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Matt,
I like the idea of a competition. I would like to assemble a list of what such a system must have prior to any competition. I am an official old guy and I try to help rookies whenever and wherever I can. In the past we had some pretty easy to use hardware that an inexperienced mentor and students could take out of the box, look at a simple block wiring diagram, start adding wires and have a robot driving in an hour or two. Granted, it didn't have the computing power some of the new software geeks wanted and it had some other limitations that were solved by the manufacturers. However, it had a few good qualities as well. It was small, lightweight, easy to use, easy to control and had sufficient tally lights to tell you what was happening.
So here is my list...
1. Out of the box it has to work for rookies running default software or at least is easily loaded with default software without any other programming in less than one half hour.
2. Can control Jags or Victors, Spikes or whatever control devices someone wants to include to drive motors and such.
3. Can run down to 4 volts input.
4. Has imbedded wireless controls of some sort.
5. Has sufficient software power to process sensors, cameras, etc. and development includes C++, Java, Labview or any other development software in general use.
6. Has at least a serial port and an ethernet port, several would be ideal.
7. Has sufficient I/O for at least 8 or 16 PWM, relay, solenoid, digital and analog ports and/or can be simply expanded for the I/O needed (i.e. plugin modules).
8. I/O is easily accomplished without sophisticated tooling.
9. Is a mature product or product line available to all teams, domestic and foreign.
10. Always of interest is something that is low cost, or is manufactured by a company interested in donating sufficient quantities to help our teams keep costs low.

Please keep in mind that team expansion is increasing by leaps and bounds and could easily reach 8-10,000 in this decade. Please feel free to add to this list your requirements.
I would be remiss if I failed to thank our current suppliers for their continued support to this organization, especially NI, IFI, TI and all the other suppliers who make this competition fun for our students and challenging for our mentors.