Introducing FRC Blocks - A starter program for FRC coding novices

[nickbrickmaster]

FRC Blocks is a web interface that allows you to code FRC robots using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. It compiles to Python in real time, allowing you to see the code that you "write". FRC Blocks is intended to be a bridge between drag-and-drop languages (scratch, labview) and more traditional programming languages.

FRC Blocks is great for:

• Workshops
• Demonstrations
• Novice Programmers

I started this project as a way to get more members of my team involved in programming the robot, even if they have no prior experience or build season is only 3 weeks away.

Try it out (no persistence or runner)

View on GitHub

It's simple to install and use.

1. Download FRC Blocks off github
2. Install pyfrc on development computer and robot
3. Start webserver (run.bat)
4. Navigate to localhost:8000/cgi-bin/index.py
5. Start coding! Use procedures named robotInit, teleopPeriodic, etc as starting points. All blocks are very similar to their robotpy counterparts.

Pneumatics, motors, some sensors, and joysticks are implemented. The live version does not spit out runnable code, as it needs a bootstrap IterativeRobot class, which is provided in the _runner.py file.

Disclaimer: I have not tried this on a robot yet. However, it works on the pyfrc simulator. I'll update this soon with info on robot testing.