Poll: Is your team using an external processor?

[seanwitte]

Originally Posted by CronosPrime1

I also don't believe in the need for one. I think that's overcomplicating things. FIRST programming is supposed to be relatively simple. To feel the limitations of the FRC, you have to do some really crazy stuff.

Most software development follows a bottom-up approach, where you start with small, managable chunks and gradually build up your functionality. It makes it easier to unit test and distribute the work load. If you have the expertise it makes sense to hand some of that work off to an external processor. Think taking Kevin Watson's camera code and running that on its own PIC. The output is the pan/tilt/centroid/bounding box/confidence. The group building out that functionality can work independently of the core programming team as long as they return the right data.

Based on the teaser that he posted, they're using a holonomic base and the camera. If the robot's reference frame is locked to the field's frame then the math and feedback loop start getting complex. Putting that on a separate processor would make sense, whether the RC could handle it or not.