NI releasing/designing new controller for FRC

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Except for that whole image processing thing...or all of the libraries that are needed. Arduinos don't have THAT much memory to put robust enough code on.

Think of all the stuff WPILib has in it. None of that would be available just because of memory restrictions.

<Chuckling> Yes... you're correct. It was, actually, impossible to have a meaningful FRC robot before 2009.

While the old IFI controller did have more memory and power than an Arduino Uno, it pales in comparison to what an Arduino Due can do, eh?

While there are a few teams out there that will use every clock cycle that they are given, there are far, FAR more teams out there who are struggling to figure out how to get a limit switch to stop their arm from destroying itself, or how to get their robot to move forward for three seconds and stop in autonomous. "Simple and supported" is likely to benefit more teams than "sophisticated and speedy".

And I'll also suggest that just as we have limits on motor power that force us to design elegant mechanical systems, it may be that meaningful limits on processing power would force teams to design more elegant software systems.

Jason