TechHOUNDS roboRIO Expansion Board

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Swiezy868

The Arduino outputs provided on the board were implemented more for controlling LEDs and other nonessential portions of the robot. As long as the Arduino outputs aren't used to cause/control motion, I believe the board should be legal even without approval from FIRST.

Like James and Ryan, this does not match my reading of the rule. If you connect an actuator to the MXP board, FIRST needs to approve the design to make sure you didn't connect the actuator to an active path.

[aryker]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Like James and Ryan, this does not match my reading of the rule. If you connect an actuator to the MXP board, FIRST needs to approve the design to make sure you didn't connect the actuator to an active path.

That was how I read it as well.

[SquishyIce]

Just for a bit of clarity, is it OK if we were to use this board for LEDs and sensors ONLY? What I'm gathering is that the board has to be approved by FIRST if anything like motors, solenoids, and whatnot are controlled through the board, but I'm not sure if my understanding of the situation is adequate.

[Greg Needel]

I will chime in here as I have first hand knowledge of what FIRST means with this rule. This year, we (REV Robotics) developed 3 different MXP boards.

1) the protoboard
2) the more board
3) the RIOduino

We approached FIRST with each one of these boards and sent them through the approval process. We were told that the first 2 boards (which are both breakouts) did not need to be approved because they considered passive. The third (RIOduino) would need to be approved as it is an active device. Just because the intent of it is to be connected to sensors, arduino shields, and LED's because it has the potential to drive motors they wanted to look at it.

The outcome of of that approval process is up to FIRST to release, and while we are hopeful in the results, until they say something about legality we won't know.

We have produced RIOduino's and they will be shipping next week to people who are interested in them, hopefully with a full FIRST endorsement.


You can check out the info for the RIOduino on our site here http://www.revrobotics.com/product/rioduino/



*on a personal note, I like your take on the board. We discussed many of the additions that you implemented, but decided against them because we wanted to maintain the standard arduino footprint. We see some major advantages of tapping into the arduino platform for FRC, specifically the many shield (LCD, sensors, LED drivers) and code examples which are out there.