NI releasing/designing new controller for FRC

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Meshbeard

I talked to the guys at the Cross the Road Electronics booth today. I can confirm that they are planning on having two versions of the Talon in the future: a pwm version and a CAN version.

I also took pictures of the informational posters they had out about the new control system (what they were allowed to say about it at least).
Control System Overview: http://i.imgur.com/eA3Bvfu.jpg
Power Distribution: http://i.imgur.com/bWDHpSt.jpg
Pneumatics: http://i.imgur.com/276hmyB.jpg
New things: http://i.imgur.com/YEtaHrp.jpg

I can try to elaborate more if someone asks for particular information.

I'll preface this by saying that I am not a CSE, EE, or embedded engineer. This layout scares me.

Having the most failure prone component (digital sidecar) now built into the robot controller worries me. How often have shorted pins, miswired power leads, and other mistakes caused burned-out sidecars?

I sincerely hope the controller is over-engineered to a level that makes it virtually indestructable. Otherwise teams will be replacing their entire controller when someone shorts a 24V power to a 5V jumper.