What to do with old control equipment?

[Greg McKaskle]

The cRIO that was used for FIRST is pretty similar to the units used to monitor bearings of power generation turbines along the east coast. Those units will probably remain installed for many years to come. So there is nothing inherently wrong with the FIRST cRIOs. But they aren't the latest/greatest either.

This is, it seems, often how technology works. Our test computers at work are yesterday's dev computers -- repurposed. They aren't ready for recycle or land-fill, but the developer can be more effective with a newer one. So in with the new, and, errr, do something with the not-so-old.

I think that it would be great for the controllers to be used for older robots, training stations, non-robotics projects such that would benefit from automation or monitoring. Perhaps the noise at an event or air temperature in the shop, or automating a robot test system for the new competition.

I'd hope that teams wouldn't sell it on EBay, and I'd hope that companies wouldn't go there either.

The cRIO can be highly customized by reprogramming at the RT level. Further customization is accomplished by changing the fpga or the I/O modules. The FPGA tools were not given in the KOP, but if a team were to write up a request explaining why it would be beneficial, who knows.

As for LabVIEW being an ulterior motive, I'd think it is pretty obvious that NI wants to give students and mentors the chance to use our products -- same as other sponsors. I didn't think it was cloaked or indirect.

I'd love to hear about some of the projects. Please do a write-up or post photos.

Greg McKaskle