[FVC]: Transferring programs between computers

[ManicMechanic]

Originally Posted by DRIVEN Caleb

One way to make a team's program legal would be to turn their program into a function, and then call that function in the operator control of the template.

I guess haven't made myself very clear. The teams I'm concerned about are not capable of doing the above. They will have no program of any kind -- no software, no template. The only "programmng" they have is the default software that comes factory-ready pre-loaded onto the controller. The only way they can make their robots go is with the remote control. If they show up at the tournament, they will be disqualified and not be allowed to let the robots run because they don't have the FVC '06-'07 template that disables the R/C during autonomous and at the end of the match. What I would like to do is find/write a program for them that makes the R/C work exactly like it does using the pre-loaded, factory-condition software and embed it into the operator controlled part of the FVC '06-'7 template. That way, their robots will be inactive during autonomous, and their remotes will work exactly the same way as they're used to during the 2 minutes of operator control.

While some might say, "Too bad for them, they should have been more aware of the programming requirements," the practical reality is that there are potentially many teams who might be disqualified for this reason. Of the 60+ teams registering interest in FVC from our area, only 8 attended the scrimmage less than a month ago. Almost half who attended had no robot built -- only Vex kits in tackle boxes. Only one had touched the programming.

When we tried to install the programming and purchase the upgrade for the school computer, we ran into many snags. We've worked on it for 4 weeks, and still don't have a working copy at school (I purchased an extra copy for home which works, and we downloaded the template using that). I'm envisioning that if other schools are having similar troubles, there will be potentially precious few teams that will fulfill the requirements of having a robot that qualifies to run.

In the interest of Gracious Professionalism, I would like to see a team that has an R/C robot have a chance to participate, even if they didn't touch the programming. It would seem that sharing a program like the one I described would be a fair way to allow those in that situation to participate.

Most of all, what I don't want to happen is for teams to drop out and not come to the tournament because they haven't been able to get a handle on the programming yet. We've already lost 18 local teams (they all bought kits and pre-registered interest) because Vex is "too hard." We ourselves struggle, so we feel for those in the same boat.