Building an arena controller

[cdawzrd]

Well, if we cannot get something setup to act like an arena controller and automatically set the channel, so be it.

To CJO - This is how we were going to do the system:

A laptop with serial port to an IFI robot controller (2004 model). This would be the "arena controller." It would have a little bit of circuitry to hook together the auton mode switches into one digital output and wire the six disable switches to more digital outputs, then have some digital inputs running to a control board with instant disable switches for the six teams. The laptop would be running a program to have serial communication with the IFI controller, telling it when to start a match and when to go autonomous, etc. That would handle the timing. It would also be talking to a custom program on another computer over a network, that computer would be hooked up to the video mix and display the countdown timer and scoreboard.

I am currently working on all three of those programs:
-the display program: 10% done
-the master control program: 0% done
-the IFI-RC master program: 15% done.

Once those get a little closer to public release, I will set up a website somewhere and post them for anyone interested.