Programming Team's Role

[inkspell4]

Hello,

Im trying to analyze what exactly a programming team needs to do so any input would be helpful

Thanks

[ksafin]

program

[inkspell4]

I was think more specific roles

[ChristopherSD]

a robot.

[inkspell4]

Come on......

[MagiChau]

Be able to solve all problems because its always your fault. (Electrical and Mechanical knowledge of the robot)

[ksafin]

Originally Posted by MagiChau

Be able to solve all problems because its always your fault. (Electrical and Mechanical knowledge of the robot)

HAHA! That's hilarious because on Mechanical we always blame software.

[inkspell4]

I give up

Not really

[EricH]

I'll try to be more specific than above... but bear in mind, I'm a mechanical. Therefore, it's always a programming problem or an electrical problem unless one or both of the above can prove that it is in fact a mechanical problem.

Programmers program the robot. This means that they sit at computers typing and clicking to make the code that drives the robot. They then compile the code, download it, test it, and fix any problems they find. The cycle then repeats.

What often happens is that they get to do the download, test, fix part only in the last few days before build day. This means that the more coding they do before they get the robot, the better. Understandably, they may ask for testbeds to do so. (They may not always get them, however.)

That, in a nutshell, is the sole, complete, and entire job of the programming team. They may subdivide it into autonomous and teleoperated, or into who programs what function of the robot, but as a programming team, their job is to write code so the robot doesn't just sit there.

[inkspell4]

Originally Posted by EricH

I'll try to be more specific than above... but bear in mind, I'm a mechanical. Therefore, it's always a programming problem or an electrical problem unless one or both of the above can prove that it is in fact a mechanical problem.

Programmers program the robot. This means that they sit at computers typing and clicking to make the code that drives the robot. They then compile the code, download it, test it, and fix any problems they find. The cycle then repeats.

What often happens is that they get to do the download, test, fix part only in the last few days before build day. This means that the more coding they do before they get the robot, the better. Understandably, they may ask for testbeds to do so. (They may not always get them, however.)

That, in a nutshell, is the sole, complete, and entire job of the programming team. They may subdivide it into autonomous and teleoperated, or into who programs what function of the robot, but as a programming team, their job is to write code so the robot doesn't just sit there.

Thanks for making an effort to be more specific

[FrankJ]

Some where on the team you need a conductor. Somebody who understands everything it takes to make the robot work & get the various teams to work together. On our team that is the job of the chief engineer.

As far as what is expected from the programming team. They need to understand the electrical side of things because the Crio ultimately interacts with the world through electrical IO. They need to understand the mechanical side of things because ultimately the robot is a mechanical device. The need to understand the controls because ultimately the drive team control the robot. So the program team does not get to shape reality. The programers have to make their program work with the reality giving them. So of course it is ultimately the programmer fault when it doesn't work.

[inkspell4]

Thats not fair

[McGurky]

The most important responsibility that is left out of the previous comments...

Programmers need to be an integral part of the entire mechanical design of the robot.

In my experience, I have seen far to many robots be designed, build, rebuild then handed off to the programmers to "Make it work". This will often times leave the programmers with a robot they

a) are not capable of programming (with their particular skillsets)
b) do not have the time to completely program


To have a successful robot, it is necessary that the programming team is active in the robot design from day one. In the end, it is the responsibility of the programming team to make the dreams of the mechanical team come true. This means, they need to step in during the initial design and say "this might be difficult to control", or "we might not be capable of doing this", or "if you move this back 2 inches from the sensor it will give our program more time to respond correctly".

This is our most recent revision of the team 1716 organization structure, where at the bottom of the page you will see our build season structure. This document shows that that our team is split up into subteams to design specific systems on the robot. In each of those subteams, there is a control (programming/electrical) team member to ensure that sensors and programmability is integrated into the mechanical design of the robot.

Being active from week ONE, will save many headaches and late nights at the end of week SIX!

[chadr03]

I like to think that the drive team members are the programming team’s customers and the programmers have to try to meet the drive team’s needs. There are many sensors and control tools that can dramatically aide the drivers during the matches and the programming group plays a big part in making the sensors work.

[inkspell4]

I was also thinking of goals and team responsibilities for the programming team