National Instruments Pilot Program

[Danny Diaz]

By now teams should have received an e-mail blast announcing the National Instruments Pilot Program. The pilot program will represent a unique opportunity to use and incorporate National Instruments NI-DAQ hardware in the design, prototype, test, and validation phases of the US-FIRST build. Teams that are accepted through the application process will receive a National Instruments USB-DAQ 6009 device to be used with LabVIEW 8.0 Student Edition. This device can interface with most sensors to perform measurement and data logging and also to generate signals very similar to those produced by sensors (do you see where this is going?).

The National Instruments Pilot Program application process requires you to answer some standard questions but it also asks you to describe how you plan on using the National Instruments hardware in your build season this year. Since the application is in a "survey" style format, I thought it useful to list out the questions you'll need to answer so that you will have a chance to think about them before attempting to fill out the application. Here they are:

1. Team Contact Information (Coaches name, shipping address, etc...)
2. What regional competition(s) does your team plan to attend this year?
3. How many years has your team participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition?
4. How many members are on your FIRST Robotics Competition team?
5. Will you commit to participate in an online discussion forum throughout the pilot to share feedback with other FIRST Robotics Competition teams, as well as participate in a post-pilot survey?
6. Are you or someone on your team (including students, mentors, and coaches) familiar with NI LabVIEW?
7. Please elaborate on your familiarity with LabVIEW.
8. Are you or someone on your team (including students, mentors, and coaches) familiar with data acquisition technology?
9. Please elaborate on your familiarity with data acquisition.
10. Please explain how team resources will be dedicated to learning and implementing NI technology.
11. Please explain how your team plans to incorporate NI technology into the 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition build season.

All of these questions are important, but the last two questions are the "deal breaker" questions. Please put some extra effort into answering these questions - talk to your teammates, talk to your mentors, think hard about your build season and ways you can realistically improve it; if National Instruments hardware can help in these areas, be sure to let us know!

-Danny

[KenWittlief]

very interesting. One of the problems I often ran into was debugging the robot while it was being driven around. For example, trying to debug a closed loop feedback steering control system that is using solid state gyros.

You cant do that just putting the robot on the cart, because the gyros (and the robot) have to actually turn to function.

Very often I wished I could connect my digital scope to the control loop, while it was being driven. Something like this data logger could be the answer: put your robot in auton mode, or driving closed loop, and it collects data from the control system, then you download it to your laptop for analysis.

Lots of potential here!

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Lots of potential here!

You bet. Depending on how much data you're spitting out, the Dashboard might also be a good way to relay data from the RC to the OI (the Dashboard is updated around 40 times per second, which means one of the user variables are updated 40 times per second and the rest are updated 13 times per second). I'll be releasing a really souped-up LabVIEW Dashboard soon for teams to use to display and record what's happening on their robots about the same time you'll be receiving your LabVIEW 8.0 Student Edition copies!

Realize the USB-DAQ device doesn't have any on-board memory nor on-board power, so to use the USB-DAQ to capture data you'd have to (1) plug a PDA (with a USB controller) to the USB-DAQ, (2) connect the USB-DAQ to a wireless USB hub powered on the robot and capture data on a laptop connected to a similar hub, (3) use a long tether, or (4) strap your laptop to the robot while it's doing its thing. My favorite is (1), though I could see you doing (4) if it's safe, and if you can demonstrate a spectacular use-case I might be able to get a couple LabVIEW 8.0 PDA modules to give to teams that request them.

-Danny

[Rickertsen2]

I can think of tons of applications for this!

I love the amount of free stuff we get for being in FIRST and i use every bit of it the the fullest.

[Ellery]

This sounds pretty kool... I've worked with Ni-Daq stuff for a bunch of years and used to do alot of Fixturing with it so using this for controls validation would be great.

I'll have to see depending when this kit is actually available to work on.

Hopefully we'll qualifiy for the program.

Ellery

[Danny Diaz]

Remember, there are only 2 days left to submit an application for this pilot program opportunity! There have been so many outstanding applications that we may end up increasing the number of teams we award NI hardware to - if you think you might be interested but didn't apply because you didn't think you'd get in, go ahead and apply!

Remember we will let all teams who submitted an application know the status of that application by EOB Wednesday, December 7. Teams should have the hardware in-hand soon afterwards!

-Danny

[DonRotolo]

Danny,
This is a fantastic opportunity. I think that a wider application of DAQ, and especially using LabVIEW to make it friendly, would dramatically enhance FIRST. After all, this is how real engineering is done: design, build, and validate. I fear that few teams actually use DAQ for their validations, and NI's involvement can change that for the better.
Last year, as a rookie team, we barely got the robot together in time for shipping, with no real preparation until the first week of January. This year, we have over 60 students, and lots of pre-season training ongoing and planned, and with a dedicated validation team we plan on really getting into it this year - even if we are limited to the '8 bit DAQ' capabilities of the Robot Controller.

Thanks to NI for getting involved.

Don