SHARP Scripter - GUI-Based Autonomous Scripter

[eddie12390]

Description:

FRC Team 3260 would like to announce SHARP Scripter, an autonomous scripting program developed by our team in C++ using Qt creator. This program allows FRC teams to quickly create a variety of autonomous options. These options can then be tested and used in competition without the need to use an IDE to compile and deploy the entirety of the program. This also means that teams can simply place the Autonomous modes that they would like to use on a flash drive that is then inserted into the roboRIO.

SHARP Scripter has been used by our team to create the Autonomous options that we used while competing at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional, helping us to stay flexible for our partners.

The source code for SHARP Scripter is now being release under the GPL v3. We currently have prebuilt binaries available for Linux and we intend to have binaries available for Windows. Additionally, we are working on a Java based interpreter for use on the robot as well as guides for using each portion of the program.

With its ease of use and intuitive flow-chart like structure, SHARP Scripter can be used by any member of your team, whereas in the past programming was significantly more restrictive due to the skills required.

Links:

SHARP Scripter on GitHub
SHARP Scripter Linux Binaries

Screenshots:

Simple Autonomous Layout Example
Simple Autonomous Layout Example With Parameters
Command Option Creation

Licensing: GPL v3 (More Info)

Credits:

• Qt Creator
• JSONCPP
• JSON Simple for Java

[daconex]

Interesting idea! I'm definitely going to check it out!

[Ozuru]

It looks neat, but it appears to have the flow of a drag-and-drop program (especially the programming language that FIRST Lego League uses). Try taking a different approach and plotting them on a top-down field; for example, you would tell it to go to this point on the image and it would do a simple calculation to calculate the amount of inches away or so you are and then generate the code necessary for driving to that location. Does that make sense? Autonomous scripting like this has been done before but only one team has done what I mentioned (PiggyPlotter is the name I think) and it's not open-source.

Nevertheless, great job so far! There looks to be a lot of time put into it.

[nathanwalters]

Originally Posted by Ozuru

It looks neat, but it appears to have the flow of a drag-and-drop program (especially the programming language that FIRST Lego League uses). Try taking a different approach and plotting them on a top-down field; for example, you would tell it to go to this point on the image and it would do a simple calculation to calculate the amount of inches away or so you are and then generate the code necessary for driving to that location. Does that make sense? Autonomous scripting like this has been done before but only one team has done what I mentioned (PiggyPlotter is the name I think) and it's not open-source.

Nevertheless, great job so far! There looks to be a lot of time put into it.

A number of years before I was on WildStang, our team used something similar to what you're describing: you could plot out an arbitrary path on the field, and the robot would traverse it using a system we called stangPS (stang positioning system). I can talk to the mentors and see if the code is still around and if we can release it. It's probably very outdated but it could still be interesting to look through.

[Dave Scheck]

Originally Posted by nathanwalters

A number of years before I was on WildStang, our team used something similar to what you're describing: you could plot out an arbitrary path on the field, and the robot would traverse it using a system we called stangPS (stang positioning system). I can talk to the mentors and see if the code is still around and if we can release it. It's probably very outdated but it could still be interesting to look through.

Nathan, I was the mentor that did that back in 2003, and updated in 2004 (was that really 12 years ago?!?!). The navigation software on the robot was called StangPS. The external C# program that we used to draw the autonomous routines was called WildDraw. Our naming convention was that anything on the robot was Stang* and any external tool was Wild*. 2003 was the first year of autonomous and we were able to capitalize on the flexibility of being able to semi-accurately tweak programs without being on the field. We actually drew up a bunch of programs on the bus going to Michigan based on some ideas we were throwing around.

The program itself was a top down view of the field and you would add waypoints to create your path. Each waypoint had a series of properties that defined what we wanted the robot to do at each point. The output was a block of text (basically a giant array definition) that we would copy/paste right into our code.

I can probably dig up an old copy of that code, but at this point it's probably so archaic that I'm not sure what you'd learn from it. I can almost guarantee that it isn't in good shape for releasing to public eyes. I know we took a lot of short cuts and things were very tailored to our specific needs. If you're super interested in it let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks to the wayback machine, I was able to find an old video that we did showing how we accomplished what we did. You'll see some WildDraw shots at the end of it. http://web.archive.org/web/200601141...in/stangps.php

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Ozuru

It looks neat, but it appears to have the flow of a drag-and-drop program (especially the programming language that FIRST Lego League uses). Try taking a different approach and plotting them on a top-down field; for example, you would tell it to go to this point on the image and it would do a simple calculation to calculate the amount of inches away or so you are and then generate the code necessary for driving to that location. Does that make sense? Autonomous scripting like this has been done before but only one team has done what I mentioned (PiggyPlotter is the name I think) and it's not open-source.

Nevertheless, great job so far! There looks to be a lot of time put into it.

Just because it's the first time you've seen it doesn't make it the first time it was done.

[Kevin Selavko]

Originally Posted by Ozuru

It looks neat, but it appears to have the flow of a drag-and-drop program (especially the programming language that FIRST Lego League uses). Try taking a different approach and plotting them on a top-down field; for example, you would tell it to go to this point on the image and it would do a simple calculation to calculate the amount of inches away or so you are and then generate the code necessary for driving to that location. Does that make sense? Autonomous scripting like this has been done before but only one team has done what I mentioned (PiggyPlotter is the name I think) and it's not open-source.

Nevertheless, great job so far! There looks to be a lot of time put into it.

I know that team BNS made something like this for vex called VAP(VEX Autonomous Planner).
https://youtu.be/BFaWg4AFxuM?t=48s
http://www.vexforum.com/showthread.php?t=83258

[M3rcuriel]

I'm working on a modification to SmartDashboard that will allow us to write auton from SmartDashboard in queue.