New Robot Control System!

[Golto]

Actually, a good portion of the fisr community, myself included, use Linux. It is hailed for it's reliability. You're probably right about the camera thing there. But in all honesty, all you need a library compiled! And they would'nt be throwing out all the work. Nobody said anything about them abandoning C!

I know that the new PIC processors came out at IFI, I think that it's just an OI upgrade with a USB system.

[SgtMillhouse648]

Originally Posted by Golto

Actually, a good portion of the fisr community, myself included, use Linux. It is hailed for it's reliability. You're probably right about the camera thing there. But in all honesty, all you need a library compiled! And they would'nt be throwing out all the work. Nobody said anything about them abandoning C!

I know that the new PIC processors came out at IFI, I think that it's just an OI upgrade with a USB system.

To be honest, how do you know that a large amount of the first community uses linux? I know for a fact, only one person on our team uses linux, and he only uses it on the rare occasion that he cannot accomplish something easily in windows. Even with all of the help from kevin and the good folks at intelitek, at the midwest regional, there were only two teams that attempted to score during autonomous, and only one managed to score, and even then, we only scored five times out of the whole competition. If things change too much, teams will be left in the dust.
Just my $.02
Malhon

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by Golto

Actually, a good portion of the fisr community, myself included, use Linux. It is hailed for it's reliability. You're probably right about the camera thing there. But in all honesty, all you need a library compiled! And they would'nt be throwing out all the work. Nobody said anything about them abandoning C!

I know that the new PIC processors came out at IFI, I think that it's just an OI upgrade with a USB system.

Also, don't forget using Linux and being a competent Linux programmer, are two totally different things. Even if a good portion of FIRST students use Linux, I doubt many can program for it.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by SgtMillhouse648

Even with all of the help from kevin and the good folks at intelitek, at the midwest regional, there were only two teams that attempted to score during autonomous, and only one managed to score, and even then, we only scored five times out of the whole competition.

You are incorrectly assuming that the other teams did not attempt because they were not able to and/or the problem was too hard. This is not the case - I can think of several teams at Midwest that I know are fully capable of completing an autonomous task like 2007's (and I'm sure there's many more than that which I am not thinking of at this time). I assume they (like us) decided that the autonomous payoff was not worth the investment and chose to spend their time/resources elsewhere. We chose to focus our software and electrical skills on making our robot easier to control for the operators. In the end, we feel we made the right decision.

[SgtMillhouse648]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

You are incorrectly assuming that the other teams did not attempt because they were not able to and/or the problem was too hard. This is not the case - I can think of several teams at Midwest that I know are fully capable of completing an autonomous task like 2007's (and I'm sure there's many more than that which I am not thinking of at this time). I assume they (like us) decided that the autonomous payoff was not worth the investment and chose to spend their time/resources elsewhere. We chose to focus our software and electrical skills on making our robot easier to control for the operators. In the end, we feel we made the right decision.

And you did an excellent job at that, I am trying to say if FIRST switched over to a completely different control system, that it would make it much harder to accomplish things as fast as it would be with the current control system. To the best of my knowlege, by West Michigan, the championship, and IRI, you're robot had excellent autonomous capabilities. Wouldn't it have been nice to have that in the beginning also? Thats all Im trying to say. If a completely new control system was brought into effect, with nothing similar to the current one, it could take much longer to get to where you could be had FIRST stuck with the current control system, in your case, maybe no autonomous, and the robot much harder to control.
Malhon

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by SgtMillhouse648

...I am trying to say if FIRST switched over to a completely different control system, that it would make it much harder to accomplish things as fast as it would be with the current control system....
If a completely new control system was brought into effect, with nothing similar to the current one, it could take much longer to get to where you could be had FIRST stuck with the current control system, in your case, maybe no autonomous, and the robot much harder to control.

I don't understand your reasoning. Different and difficult are not the same word. As a counterpoint to what you're trying to say, consider the significant change between 2003 and 2004's robot controllers. None of the previous PBASIC programming experience applied directly to the use of C in the new system, but the extra power of the new system made doing almost everything much easier. Algorithms remain intact even when the underlying architecture changes, and having more capability in the hardware yields more "breathing room" for fast implementation.

We also don't know how the 2009 control system will connect to the robot sensors and effectors, or how much will be taken care of by the hardware. It could very well be a lot easier to work with than this year's system.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by SgtMillhouse648

To the best of my knowlege, by West Michigan, the championship, and IRI, you're robot had excellent autonomous capabilities. Wouldn't it have been nice to have that in the beginning also?

You still missed my point. If we wanted it in the beginning we would have had it. The autonomous you saw at other events was implemented mostly in a single 5 hour fix-it window. The control system did not prevent us from implementing it before Midwest. We decided not to do it before then because it wasn't valuable enough, and we were right.

If a completely new control system was brought into effect, with nothing similar to the current one, it could take much longer to get to where you could be had FIRST stuck with the current control system, in your case, maybe no autonomous, and the robot much harder to control.

I agree this is a possibility, and frankly if the new control system does not permit us to at least choose to use C then I will be highly disappointed (however more language options would be fantastic). As long as the designers of the new system don't do anything really ill-advised (like requiring the use of Labview [ugh]) then we should be fine. Remember, the 2007 rules did not permit you to reuse software that you wrote from prior years, so you can't really make the argument that changing systems would force you to rewrite stuff since that was already true this year. Sure, Kevin's stuff would need to be replaced, but I'm sure he or someone else in the community would be right on top of that.

As empirical evidence, in 2003 we implemented this awesome little autonomous system that tracked our robot's position on the field and allowed us to literally draw out our autonomous routines in a GUI. It worked wonderfully, even course-correcting when other robots would bump into it. This system was written in PBASIC (with only 90 bytes of RAM and 16K of EEPROM!) and HC08 assembly. In 2004 they released the C-based controllers and we switched to C on our custom circuit as well. Re-implementing this system on the new setup was a breeze compared to doing it in PBASIC and allowed us to do many new things that we couldn't before. In 2003 there were only a handful of teams capable of something like that. Now, there are dozens of teams trying to recreate what we did back then. And many base their work on a presentation that we put together describing our 2003 system, which talks about the algorithms we used which are just as applicable today as they were in the days of PBASIC (see Alan's post above).

[Gdeaver]

Question? What would the First community think of going with something completely new , different and proprietary if the software company was flush with cash and in to sponsoring first in a big way. If First committed to their software platform. I'm talking about MSRS. Microsoft is already a sponsor and this year Will launch the Seattle regional. Would you sell your programming soul to MS if it meant lots of cash and support for the First program? I've recently had time to play with MSRS and believe it could take First into the future. There would be an enormous amount of development work but, the pay off in future growth and flexibility could be enormous. With MS's push into robotics and education I don't believe the marriage would be to hard to arrange. However, a divorce would be nasty.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

Would you sell your programming soul to MS if it meant lots of cash and support for the First program? I've recently had time to play with MSRS and believe it could take First into the future.

Were it up to me, I would turn down that opportunity.

MS Robotics Studio is obviously very powerful. It provides a lot of infrastructure that makes programming act a lot like putting together a network of independent computers. It could very well be the way of the future. For a High School robotics program in the present of the early 21st Century, however, I think it might be a bit much to expect people to embrace.

From the very first tutorial, on detecting a bumper switch contact: "The simplest way to bind the service partner to your hardware is to start an additional manifest which contains the service contract(s) for your hardware."

Yeah, good luck not scaring off potential student programmers with that one.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

Question? What would the First community think of going with something completely new , different and proprietary if the software company was flush with cash and in to sponsoring first in a big way.
...
Would you sell your programming soul to MS if it meant lots of cash and support for the First program?

There is a reason that FIRST does not accept sponsorship from liquor companies or tobacco companies. Desite the potential of considrable financial benefit, FIRST has recognized that those products are fundamentally inconsistent with programs involving underage, impressionable young minds. Those companies have cultivated a corporate culture designed to addict and corrupt the creative and innovative intellectual resources of the next generation. They destroy the human capital of the country for the sake of corporate profits.

So why should Microsoft be treated any differently?




.

[Pavan Dave]

Originally Posted by dlavery

There is a reason that FIRST does not accept sponsorship from liquor companies or tobacco companies. Desite the potential of considrable financial benefit, FIRST has recognized that those products are fundamentally inconsistent with programs involving underage, impressionable young minds. Those companies have cultivated a corporate culture designed to addict and corrupt the creative and innovative intellectual resources of the next generation. They destroy the human capital of the country for the sake of corporate profits.

So why should Microsoft be treated any differently?




.

Because Microsoft makes a load of money and 'support' education and own most people's software souls already. Alcohol companies and tobacco companies don't already have most of the souls of todays people, youth included.

You can't compare Philip Morris to Microsoft.

Pavan.

[SgtMillhouse648]

agreed 100%

[Qbranch]

I just like being the only software running on-chip... I have enough fun knowing what my own code is doing in the machine.... I don't need to add an operating system (that isn't mine) and umpteen more programmer's code from the O/S into the mix.....

Just my 0.52 Rubles.

-q

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Pavan

Because Microsoft makes a load of money and 'support' education and own most people's software souls already. Alcohol companies and tobacco companies don't already have most of the souls of todays people, youth included.

You can't compare Philip Morris to Microsoft.

Pavan.

I beg to differ show me a statistic that says that more people have computers with windows then people who drink alcohol.

I think that alcohol companies represent a larger market share then Microsoft could ever accomplish. They also have many outreach programs. It is just a fact of life that when companies make loads of money they have to give some away.

I can understand FIRST's reasoning for not taking major partnerships with cigarette and alcohol due to the perception, but not taking on Microsoft for those same reasons is just a silly argument. Just because there is a portion of FIRST students and mentors who dislike Microsoft for whatever reason that a partnership with one of the largest tech companies in the world should be ignored.

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

I can understand FIRST's reasoning for not taking major partnerships with cigarette and alcohol due to the perception, but not taking on Microsoft for those same reasons is just a silly argument. Just because there is a portion of FIRST students and mentors who dislike Microsoft for whatever reason that a partnership with one of the largest tech companies in the world should be ignored.

Considering the history of how they became one of the largest tech companies in the world, I'm not so sure that's something FIRST students should look up to, considering the emphasis of gracious professionalism within the program.