Question About Robot Controller

[MikeDubreuil]

As Peter said, FIRST is ultimately a customer of IFI's at this point. However, they share a wonderful symbiotic relationship.

I forgot exactly when the change occurred, prior to about 2000 FIRST provided a control system in the kit that was designed and perhaps manufactured by themselves. This was done primarily by Eric Rasmussen of DEKA Research. After each robotics season you had to send the controller and radios back to FIRST to be reused the next year.

IFI grew out of a need for a company to design, manufacture and support a FIRST control system. As you can tell from the quality of their products that FIRST has benefited greatly from their involvement.

[ZZII 527]

As a lucky member of the "I've voided my RC warranty" club, I can say with relative certainty that there is enough room on the RC circuit for a USB interface. (If they do add one, I would bet it is just an FTDI USB-to-TTL chip.) I agree with Kingofl337, though, that having the serial port provides a little bit more functionality.

I would like to see a USB interface for joysticks on the OI. That is a different story, though. The OI must be a USB host, not an end-device, I think.