New robot controller next year?

[KenWittlief]

An engineer said he was talking to one of the Innovation FIRST guys at a regional, and heard there is going to be an entirely new robot control / operator interface system next year!

faster cycle times, more SW variables, more code space

anyone able to confirm this?

(BTW - this means all our control systems become obsolete for spares - [moment of silence] ok, thats enough mourning for the old RC's :c)

I hope this rumor is true!

[redbeard0531]

Hopefuly no more pBasic. I would love it if they moved to an event driven language, but that is unlikely. If not, they should at least give us the ability to use real functions where you can pass stuff in, and return stuff.


Unlikely, but we can always hope!

[The Lucas]

Maybe the new controller will have a clock that we can actually sample time off of. I am tired of counting program iterations. Also, functions we could actually pass parameters to would be nice. Could someone please explain the purpose of gosub? It is just a goto with a return statement, totally worthless. I am sure there are about a dozen other things to improve on.

[redbeard0531]

Originally posted by The Lucas
Could someone please explain the purpose of gosub? It is just a goto with a return statement, totally worthless.

GoSub is an important feature from the basic lineage. Remember, pBasic is used for much more than just our robots.In the BASICs, a sub-routene is like a void function in C/C++/Java. An important aspect of a subroutene is that it will always go back to where it was called from. This is especialy important in code recycling. Imagine if you had to keep track of every place that a function is called from! It also helps with organization; every section can have it own subroutene that each subsystem can work on independently of the rest of the program.

[Jeff_Rice]

A new controller would rock! I would love to play with something new!

Maybe they should have it be a quantum microcomputer. There were so many times this year that I wished a bit had three settings(on, off, on and off).

[Sachiel7]

You sure he didn't mean that IFI was coming out with a new system? Just cause IFI could be making a new system doesn't mean that FIRST is going to use it. In fact, I'll bet that It'd be cheaper for FIRST to get the same type model as used currently if IFI were coming out with something new.
Anyway, I still hope that if we Do have a new controller, that programming isn't biased to a specific language like C or Java...
PBasic is just so easy, and evey programmer SHOULD have some basic in them...
Mabie IFI's making a controller with the Javelin... (Shudder)
Sorry, I just don't have much Java experience...
I don't want to be put out of a job by a new controller!!!
SAVE ME!!!!!!!!

[The Lucas]

Originally posted by redbeard0531
It also helps with organization; every section can have it own subroutene that each subsystem can work on independently of the rest of the program.

Ya I use it for organization too. I am just angry with it b/c last year I had to write the same long routine for 3 identical mechanisms. I almost ran out of EEPROM space (I didnt want to mess with a new page). I thought about simulating a function call, but that takes extra RAM. Also, due to a couple of connections btw the variables and other routines, I couldnt use scratchpad. Last years bot had way to many features out of the box and we quickly eliminated many of them.

[AJ Quick]

I would like to see a operator interface, and robot controller, that is more resistant to water. It rained on our OI at UCF, and we needed to get a new one.

[Ryan Foley]

Originally posted by AJ Quick
I would like to see a operator interface, and robot controller, that is more resistant to water. It rained on our OI at UCF, and we needed to get a new one.

That got me thinking, perhaps that is what IFI is going to do

water game next year anyone?

perhaps i am just way to tired to think straight

A new controller wouldnt be to bad, I would have to spend all my time learning it, as I am just starting to get good with the old one after 2 years

[Joe Ross]

I heard similar rumors this year, specifically, a controller 25x faster then this one.

Then again, I can't remember a year in which there weren't rumours of a new control system for next year.

[Ian W.]

i've heard PSX controller ports, at least two, instead of game ports. i prefer gameports, as i've almost memorized the pinout now . be interesting though, to drive with a PSX controller...

[Stephen Kowski]

I have heard that is going to be based on the Javelin Stamp. Java?! oh well im glad I won't be programming that.

[Nate Smith]

After talking to the IFI rep at Great Lakes, all I could get out of him is that a new controller is in discussion...whether or not it will make an appearance, and then if FIRST will use it, are two separate issues entirely...

[KenWittlief]

I get the pretty clear impression that Innovation First is driven by what First wants - so they would not be designing/building a new control system unless FIRST was asking them to.

And they would not build it unless they were certain FIRST would use it.

Remember back in the day, before Victor speed controllers? when we use Rebels on the Bot?

[Sachiel7]

I think that if FIRST and IFI do plan on changing the OI and RC next year, that they should give out the info on it and it's programming language pre-season.
It would be a huge hurdle to Learn a new language AND write the entire program within the 6 weeks.