2009 Control System Possibility?

[erikstotle]

Originally Posted by 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.

I whole-heartedly agree. Engineering is not about throwing together blocks of high-level code that "magically" works. If students aren't exposed to what actually goes into making things work the way the do, then what exactly is the point of even doing robotics? Anybody can throw together a program if enough of the low-level work has been done for them. IMHO the biggest problem with the FIRST program in general (just from what I've seen on my own team, but also at competitions) is that, while people are willing to get excited about engineering, when it comes right down to it, a lot aren't really motivated or open to learning. There is a lot more about programming than meets the eye. Trying to get somebody to get the hard work out of the way so you can make an even more awesome robot is not the point. I thought FIRST was not only about getting students excited about engineering, but also about actually giving them skills to get ahead in the workplace. I'm fairly sure that at a lot of companies, you won't be able to just integrate a bunch of high level components and expect it to work. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with teams that don't have a very experienced programming team to use more high level tools to get a working robot together, and maybe learn a bit more about programming. But its a whole different story when you prevent people (myself included) who have worked very hard to get to the level of proficiency in programming, from using the skills that they have acquired. If FIRST decides to switch to a system that "dumbs down" the programming too much, then I will probably quit. I would probably gain more experience fiddling with various open source projects than I would playing around with a robot that doesn't allow me to program it at a low enough level. I want to gain knowledge and experience, not some new-fangled system that restrains me. Maybe I've very much missed the point and am all wet, and if that is so, then please forgive me, but I felt it needed to be said.