Onboard Computer

[ekapalka]

Hey! I have a lot of questions relating to this topic. I asked on the rules forum about the legality of having what is essentially a desktop computer on-board a robot, and the answer was something like "as long as each and every part is under $400...". To me, the combination of this knowledge and the upcoming release of the Kinect 2 together are amazing. But something has really been bugging me about this. How can you have an operating system that simply starts up and literally does nothing but execute a single program at startup, with no HIDs or anything? I've seen a few teams using laptops, NUCs, and even bare-bones computers running XP using OpenCV. Do those teams have to start up their robot and processor prior to the match using prehiperals or does it have to boot up with the robot while on the field? I think it might be possible to have a fast boot up and automatic execution using some flavour of Linux...