Sasquatch Robot Controller powered by Arduino

[Foster]

Sparkfun has a good Arduino math tutorial that talks about bytes, ints, float and longs. They do some very simple math and give you size and time.

It's interesting to see things that we did in the 70's and 80's are coming back. Yay integer math!!

[nyaculak]

I am very excited about this proposed controller. I really hope we use this for the new control system. I currently have a RobotOpen shield, which I plan to start using after the upcoming build season. It would be really exciting to see the (expensive) cRIO being replaced by a cheaper, open source controller.

I was reading the proposal request from FIRST, and it seems that the new control system will be required to support at least two languages (at least one being a visual language). I expect you to use the native Arduino-C language and environment. What are your plans on the visual language? I found an Arduino and LabView bundle on Sparkfun a little while ago.

For the future, I think it may be worthwhile developing an image-processing board that is made to work nicely with the Sasquatch. My team likes to use the Beagle products for our image processing. I believe something that falls in between the BeagleBone and the BeagleBoard should be powerful enough for the image processing that occurs on the FRC level.

[inkspell4]

I actually have used labview to program the Arduino all it takes is a simple plugin. It would most likely be configured to work if someone would take the time to make it work.

[ajlapp]

I am very excited about this proposed controller. I really hope we use this for the new control system. I currently have a RobotOpen shield, which I plan to start using after the upcoming build season. It would be really exciting to see the (expensive) cRIO being replaced by a cheaper, open source controller.

Unfortunately this will not be a reality. We were informed on Friday that we didn't make the first round of cuts. Hopefully a solution as simple as the Arduino will prevail.

What are your plans on the visual language?

We proposed Simulink. It will compile down to the Arduino and there is official support from Mathworks.

Simulink + Arduino

That said we have focused mainly on the native Arduino environment.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Foster

Sparkfun has a good Arduino math tutorial that talks about bytes, ints, float and longs. They do some very simple math and give you size and time.

It's interesting to see things that we did in the 70's and 80's are coming back. Yay integer math!!

80's? We were using integer math on the IFI control system in 2008

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by nyaculak

I am very excited about this proposed controller. I really hope we use this for the new control system. I currently have a RobotOpen shield, which I plan to start using after the upcoming build season. It would be really exciting to see the (expensive) cRIO being replaced by a cheaper, open source controller.

I was reading the proposal request from FIRST, and it seems that the new control system will be required to support at least two languages (at least one being a visual language). I expect you to use the native Arduino-C language and environment. What are your plans on the visual language? I found an Arduino and LabView bundle on Sparkfun a little while ago.

For the future, I think it may be worthwhile developing an image-processing board that is made to work nicely with the Sasquatch. My team likes to use the Beagle products for our image processing. I believe something that falls in between the BeagleBone and the BeagleBoard should be powerful enough for the image processing that occurs on the FRC level.

Where did you find the control system proposal? I couldn't find it with a quick google.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Where did you find the control system proposal? I couldn't find it with a quick google.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=108083

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by ajlapp

Unfortunately this will not be a reality. We were informed on Friday that we didn't make the first round of cuts. Hopefully a solution as simple as the Arduino will prevail.



We proposed Simulink. It will compile down to the Arduino and there is official support from Mathworks.

Simulink + Arduino

That said we have focused mainly on the native Arduino environment.

Since you have openly acknowledged this I'll add my 2 cents.
Myself and another party also presented a proposal for a control system to FIRST.

We also were told Friday that our proposal will not be making it to the second round.

In our case it was understandable. We don't currently have the product in the market place and while our core processor, like the Arduino, was available at Radio Shack FIRST had some concerns about our system not be established enough for their needs.

We were able to self fund the effort for the most part but like yourselves we lacked specifics from FIRST about the enclosure.

On the plus side within 24 hours I was able to locate an alternate place to sell the system for a slightly different purpose and that means we have sufficient cause to continue our project and maybe in a few years FIRST will still be interested. Our system was specifically designed to weather time so really regardless of how many years FIRST waits when the time comes we'll have something current and timely to show.

Having looked your product over I think it's interesting. I wish you all the best in getting it out there and funded and I'll even toss you a few bucks towards that end. At the very minimum your approach to solving the issue of the graphical language was different from ours fundamentally. I was going to approach that by creating a construct from scratch even though there's already a drag and drop programming language and ladder logic programming translater available for our target CPU.

I won't distract from this topic with specifics on the alternate system, I just wanted to offer some collaboration and maybe some comfort to a fellow traveller. Keep the faith and march on cause we'll be on that same path.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Where did you find the control system proposal? I couldn't find it with a quick google.

The proposal link is in the FRC blog:
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr.../blog-08-29-12

We submitted a 16 page response and had 5 drawings and a brochure with our response and it wasn't easy considering the timelines.

In any event it was interesting and we thank FIRST for taking the time to look it over.

[ajlapp]

Having looked your product over I think it's interesting. I wish you all the best in getting it out there and funded and I'll even toss you a few bucks towards that end.

We appreciate the support.

We crafted what I felt was a strong proposal that clearly addressed every aspect of the request, though we only submitted for the Mobile Robot Controller portion.

We were able to satisfy nearly ever technical request and exceeded the required number of I/O in each category excluding those like CAN that weren't applicable.

We have "partners" to some degree in this process, so I'm quite confident that we'll be launching this board in the near future. We'd like to successfully Kickstart so that we can begin servicing a larger group of educational professionals and hobbyists.

Like all small companies we are eager to grow. We still consider ourselves a hardware company, but Sasquatch and our previous Arduino shield efforts lead me to believe that we are headed towards the control system market with a good head of steam.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by ajlapp

We appreciate the support.

Not a problem. I noticed that your Kickstarter seems set to be over $15k or bust by Jan 25. If you do not make that goal please contact me and I will instead send you the money outside of Kickstarter.

I only asked about CAN because I know Atmel has CAN transcievers integrated with some AVR, Mega and Xmega products. What we used has no purpose built integration. We added all special functionality by peripheral. I have a long relationship with Atmel and their products. I was just surprised considering a selling point is the availability of the CAN without adding a transciever like I did.

We hit all the big selling points as well. Heck we had a separate radio link and enough room to scale out to a small supercomputer. We also went in with plastic injection companies and existing electronic production floor. We just could not demonstrate market place sales for a hobby control system. I have no regrets about that there was no way to create that from the time they expressed interest to the proposal date it really did not matter what we wrote.

I still want to pursue a community motor control module (as stated clearly in the proposal) and now that I do not have this added pressure pulling me different directions I can continue to work on the information technology that will advance on educating the market on various things without short deadlines risking compromise on that very vital point.

[Dad1279]

Originally Posted by ajlapp

Unfortunately this will not be a reality. We were informed on Friday that we didn't make the first round of cuts. Hopefully a solution as simple as the Arduino will prevail.......

I'd like to see a simpler controller also. I pledged one on the kickstarter page, and will do another as soon as I figure out how.

[pmangels17]

Hey guys, I guess I'm the only mechanical guy on this thread. Basically, all I can see is cheaper, lighter, and smaller than the CRio, which would be awesome. Also, I would pay $15 dollars for a shirt and some stickers anyway, so I pledged. I think it's awesome that you are doing a robotics kickstarter on here and I love the thought of investing in the future of FRC. With that said, good luck to you, and I hope this product succeeds as well as it promises. That is the mechanical guys 2 cents, so thats about all I nkow on the stuff, but goodluck.

You guys (221 robotic systems) have some rocking products, and from a guy who build a crab drive as a freshman on a build team of freshman and sophomores, I know how difficult it is to do, but you guys make it look easy. Because of that, I have no doubt that this will be a high quality product, and although I won't be a team member when it hits, I cannot wait to see it come when I am a team mentor. Good luck to you guys in all your FIRST endeavors.

[Mike Copioli]

Anthony,

Does the name Sasquatch imply that it has large footprint?

Sorry....I could not resist.

[Gdeaver]

So 2 proposals were turned down. Now I'm very curious. What platforms made the cut? What may we be in for 2014? I should stop worrying about 2014 and focus on Saturday. The insanity is almost here.