2009 Control System Possibility?

[ayeckley]

My $0.02 on the topic of "build from existing modules" vs. "design and build it from scratch":

Outside of FIRST, it's a lot less about "integration" and a lot more about "design". There are relavitely few industries in which an engineer can just order parts from a catalog, integrate them together, and have an acceptable widget. This is especially true for situations where the widget will be built in more than onesy-twosy quantities. I think isolating students from "low-level" design will give them a false impression about what the majority of design engineering is really about. I'm pretty happy with the status-quo for FRC in terms of what the teams have handed to them on silver platters (the Field Control System, Kevin Watson's templates, etc.) vs. what they have to do for themselves (figure out how to drive in a straight line in autonomous, etc.). I don't think more silver platters are necessary - mechanically, electrically, or software-ically.

On the question of "how many different ways are there to make a robot drive straight?": Lots, actually. The hard part is to figure out which ones will work acceptably well based on the design of the robot, the objectives of the robot, etc. Let the teams continue to figure out how to do it for themselves. I don't think FIRST should lower the bar so far that the only thing left is a bunch of interconnected black boxes, and too few of the students know what goes on inside them.

Someone also made the argument (I'll have to paraphrase) that in the non-FIRST world "mechanical stuff just works, and it's all about the software". My experiences in the various disciplines over the years don't support that. The opposite, actually. Software doesn't wear out. The first copy of the executable file is identical to the 400,000th copy of the executable file. Software doesn't need to be crash tested (physically, at least), vibration tested, EMC tested, UL tested, etc.

Finally, the "code monkey" thing. The root of it (despite what Wikipedia says) is the old saying "if you set enough monkeys at typewriters and wait long enough, eventually one will bang out a copy of Romeo and Juliet". I know I wouldn't ever want to be referred to as just another interchangeable monkey, so I won't use the term when referring to programmers. I think it's an insult -- self-deprecating intent or not.