NI Week Athena Announcement and Q&A Panel

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by magnets

NI said that Java was an arcane language, and was part of the problem with current education is that students learn it, yet they are going to be announcing a controller that will probably work with Java.
There's a feature to zoom in the NXT programming language, but STILL NO ZOOM IN LABVIEW

-I agree with those thoughts on Java. Nothing against Java as a language, but IMO every introduction to programming I've seen for students that works in Java primarily teaches the concepts of object-oriented programming and Java syntax before actual programming concepts in general. I don't think OO is the only way to program, and a class that starts and only touches Java will promote a much more closed way of thinking about programming

-Every day I work in Simulink, I'm like 'man this is a big subsystem, I should zoom in' and then I zoom in. And then later I zoom out. AND THEN I GO BACK TO LABVIEW AND CANT ZOOM.



@everyone, Thoughts on the new controller:
-I think the expansion port is great for packaging, and allows plenty of additional IO, but I think it's going to be JUST that - a place where you can plug in a break out board to use the additional PWM/GPIO/ADC signals when you need them. I don't think more than a few teams will actually make something else for this port. Maybe a company or two, but basically no teams.
--I'm not worried about enough IO, but a few more ADC's would be nice for extra datalogging. Buzz18 uses 5 of 7 and Buzz 17 used 6 of 7, and it's nice to look at other analog signals every now and then. I also wonder if the 5v/3.3v supply is monitored by the ADC separately because we like to look at that for diagnostics, and previously used a jumper in adc7 to do this, which consumes an analog channel.

-The spec lists integrated 3-axis accelerometer. I wonder why they didn't include a gyro on this, since a gyro is definitely a way more useful sensor for FRC. I have never found a use for a chassis-mounted accelerometer in FRC.

-No spec on boot times as far as I can tell. Dissappointing. The radio issue demonstrated by 2468 almost made a joke out of the current boot times.

-OS is listed as RT Linux, which will definitely make some people very happy, but I don't really care that much. I still think we're brute-forcing the CPU loading issues rather than considering efficient design in quite a few places (outside of user code).

-Hopefully the download times improved. They were just purely awful this year. I know that was because of a LV RT bug, but it's still totally unacceptable in every way that it made it past testing like that.

-Maybe if I can get one early enough it'll push me to design something better. Who knows. But releasing software on kickoff is just crazy, I mean we really do have to install LV and new Driver Station and new Utilities on a whole bunch of computers, and there isn't even anything game related in a new version of software. I too would like to see the new controller and software in my hand at least 6mos before 2015 kickoff.

[otherguy]

Originally Posted by magnets

4 total relay (that's not enough!!)

My thoughts exactly. For the past three years we've been using more than 8 channels for pneumatic components.
The only hope is for the additional "Pneumatic" channels eluded to on page 3 of this document.
Will CAN save us all?

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Most important questions for me:

Cost? For those of us that run 2 robots how much is this going to set us back?

If they're giving one to each team any team with a crio already (anyone who was a 2014 or earlier rookie team) will have both a roboRio and crio.

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Most important questions for me:

Cost? For those of us that run 2 robots how much is this going to set us back?

Availability of both hardware and software? I don't like getting a new system on kickoff, and shipping it to me early December doesn't help much either.

Yes, I know it's over a year and a half out but it's never too early to make a plan of attack for utilizing new technology.

Here are my thoughts on your concerns:

This thing is going to be cheaper than the cRIO. A current dev board (here) with a quad core ARM is $180. The plastic case and added pins doesn't add much to the cost. I would expect this to be priced under $250, but $300 would not be too far-fetched if I missed some components. I would be highly disappointed if this was anywhere close to the current $525 for the present cRIO.

LabVIEW won't change much between now and then. The target device may have some different setup requirements in the code (header files, target device settings). I would be surprised if the workflow was any different. The target device shouldn't matter much when it comes to the code - the compiler will do the work for you. The current cRIO is running a Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and I expect the roboRIO to also run a RTOS variant of Linux.

I am curious if NI will support the present cRIOs to allow us to continue to use them in the future for various other projects/classroom activities since we have four of them.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Originally Posted by apalrd

But releasing software on kickoff is just crazy, I mean we really do have to install LV and new Driver Station and new Utilities on a whole bunch of computers, and there isn't even anything game related in a new version of software. I too would like to see the new controller and software in my hand at least 6mos before 2015 kickoff.

Sounds like a great question for Friday with Frank or the Q&A later today.

Cross the Road Electronics is also going to have a CAN pneumatic device that will take care of the Compressor, Pressure Switch and 8 solenoids (12v OR 24v not both).

http://i.imgur.com/276hmyB.jpg

Pneumatic Controller from IRI 2013

-Clinton-

[magnets]

Originally Posted by apalrd

-

-The spec lists integrated 3-axis accelerometer. I wonder why they didn't include a gyro on this, since a gyro is definitely a way more useful sensor for FRC. I have never found a use for a chassis-mounted accelerometer in FRC.

A gyro would have trouble if a team decided to mount their control system vertically, or if they didn't put the controller in the center of the robot. Every year we get these accelerometers in the KoP, and I still have no idea what to do with them. We have like 10.

Also, I feel like the 500% increase in processing power was a bit unnecessary, but it's going to be cool to work with a dual core ARM Cortex processor.

Looking at the spec sheet, we can now use both ethernet and USB connected cameras, but their is no use listed for the USB device port.

Some questions:
-Do we have a jumper for the 6V servo power?
-The spec sheet lists specs for both a 5V and 3.3V supplies. Where are they, and can we use them? The old DSC had two extra pins for the 5V supply next to the DIO, but I don't see a way to get 5V from here without using one +5 pins on a DIO.
-How do we know which of the pins in the "custom electronics" connector do which things?
-The picture of the pcb shows a 5V/3.3V selection jumper, but it can't be seen from the new pictures. What does this select?

[bardd]

Originally Posted by magnets

-Do we have a jumper for the 6V servo power?

There aren't any jumper ports... I hope we won't need a separate board for them.

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by magnets

A gyro would have trouble if a team decided to mount their control system vertically, or if they didn't put the controller in the center of the robot. Every year we get these accelerometers in the KoP, and I still have no idea what to do with them. We have like 10.

Also, I feel like the 500% increase in processing power was a bit unnecessary, but it's going to be cool to work with a dual core ARM Cortex processor.

USB Host + ARM processing power... Definitely not unnecessary. Now you can hook your Kinect directly to the robot controller and do image processing.

[magnets]

Originally Posted by Clinton Bolinger

Sounds like a great question for Friday with Frank or the Q&A later today.

Cross the Road Electronics is also going to have a CAN pneumatic device that will take care of the Compressor, Pressure Switch and 8 solenoids (12v OR 24v not both).

http://i.imgur.com/276hmyB.jpg

Pneumatic Controller from IRI 2013

-Clinton-

This is not good. The eight solenoid control really only allows for 4 solenoids, as the double solenoids require two channels to operate. With the relays it will allow for a total of 8 double solenoids. I know that 118 has used more than this in the past, and 236's bump thing used 8 just for their wheels, plus 2 or 3 more on the rest of the bot.

[magnets]

Originally Posted by stinglikeabee

USB Host + ARM processing power... Definitely not unnecessary. Now you can hook your Kinect directly to the robot controller and do image processing.

If you can get the library to process kinect data on the controller, and if you can find a USB driver that works with linux on whatever USB controller is being used.

[Jimmy Nichols]

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/4...mages/26730317

Just posted a new pic of the controller.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by magnets

This is not good. The eight solenoid control really only allows for 4 solenoids, as the double solenoids require two channels to operate. With the relays it will allow for a total of 8 double solenoids. I know that 118 has used more than this in the past, and 236's bump thing used 8 just for their wheels, plus 2 or 3 more on the rest of the bot.

As the device runs on CAN, I would assume you can utilize more than one of the devices on the robot at a time. From what I've seen inspecting, a majority of teams don't need more than 4 double solenoids. Since you have to draw the line somewhere (4, 8, 20, whatever), why not keep the whole thing as small as possible while making it all most teams need? The teams that need more will get more by adding more boards.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

Best part: Every team gets one free!

Can you elaborate? Every rookie?

[bardd]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Can you elaborate? Every rookie?

Every team that'll sign up to the 2015 season, according to earlier announcements.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Can you elaborate? Every rookie?

I expect that the cRio will not be considered part of the legal control system starting in 2015. That doesn't stop you from using it on a practice bot, just like teams used the old IFI control system for non-competition robots after the cRio came out.