Purchasing the 2009 controller

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

Yes, this is correct. Especially the C/C++ development module is not complete, plus training materials and other items. Definitely don't expect anything to be made available until the fall at a minimum.

-Danny

Thanks for clarifying things Danny. Since 'the Real Thing' won't be available till fall, I'm trying to work out a strategy of teaching our team Labview. Looking at the material available at ni.com/community/first there doesn't seem to be much beyond "Getting Started With Labview".

In addition, those of us who have been using Labview as a great lab instrument need to train up to programming the actuator outputs. This material should be available now, since we will be using a COTS unit.

What would you recommend as a tutorial training sequence to start now?

Thanks again in advance.

[BrianBSL]

Originally Posted by IndySam

But now that we have committed to ourselves to raise the funds necessary to make the leap next year, bam, up jumps the devil and another couple grand gets thrown into the mix.

Where does another couple grand get thrown into the mix? NI has said (at mentor training, etc) that it will be on the order of the same price it is now. No matter what the new controller was - IFI, NI, or otherwise - 2009 was going to require you to buy a 2nd controller if you wanted a 2nd one since we knew it was not going to be the same as 2008.

[jtdowney]

In the past the $1100 bought you a new RC and OI as well as the radios. I wonder if the comparably priced extra cRIO will come with the modules, an additional drivers station and wireless system or if it will just be the cRIO base unit.

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by jtdowney

In the past the $1100 bought you a new RC and OI as well as the radios. I wonder if the comparably priced extra cRIO will come with the modules, an additional drivers station and wireless system or if it will just be the cRIO base unit.

That would be kind of odd because the base unit's academic price is all ready cheaper than the RC and IO. The chasis costs $ 689.77 for an academic institution.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by BrianBSL

Where does another couple grand get thrown into the mix? NI has said (at mentor training, etc) that it will be on the order of the same price it is now.

Interesting comment.
Do you realize that unless you were at Nationals you still do not have access to this training and information?

[BrianBSL]

Originally Posted by billbo911

Interesting comment.
Do you realize that unless you were at Nationals you still do not have access to this training and information?

It was stated in post #8 of this thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...95&postcount=8

here (which is available to everyone, and the link to http://first.wpi.edu/FRC/csoverview.html is right on first's website) also states that the cost will be significantly reduced. Either way - nothing indicates that the cost will be $2000 more than if it hadn't been the NI system.

[jtdowney]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

That would be kind of odd because the base unit's academic price is all ready cheaper than the RC and IO. The chasis costs $ 689.77 for an academic institution.

But add in the necessary modules and it is still over $1500

[Uberbots]

im betting it cant cost NI more than $300 in order to manufacture this cRIO and all of its components, and considering its a 'student' edition and a bit of a publicity stunt (2000 working demos is nothing to scoff at), we will probably see a complete unit at about $500 dollars at the heavily reduced price, which is really not much more than the current one.

[whytheheckme]

Alright, kinda a topic change, but I'm looking to get on the ball ASAP.
Perhaps someone from the FLL area can help me out here.

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=9841&cn=17

If I buy a LEGO NXT brick, I can use the LabView kit to program it, correct? Can I get some RJ12 connectors, and use my own sensors? What would someone recommend to me to buy to get started in the LabView arena?

Sorry, I'm a LEGO newb.

Jacob

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Uberbots

im betting it cant cost NI more than $300 in order to manufacture this cRIO and all of its components

This kind of analysis really gets under my skin, people who have no idea what's in the product whatsoever trying to tell me what it costs to build it. I'm not allowed to say how much it *actually* costs to build a cRIO, but I WILL tell you that you're no where near the actual cost of COGS, not to mention actual manufacturing costs, verification and validation costs, and other costs that you probably didn't consider. And that's just the physical unit - you want to actually USE it, don't you? Well, then you've got to employ the guys who write firmware, drivers, FPGA images, ... the list goes on.

Think about that next time.

-Danny

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Jon236

What would you recommend as a tutorial training sequence to start now?

Originally Posted by whytheheckme

Alright, kinda a topic change, but I'm looking to get on the ball ASAP. ... If I buy a LEGO NXT brick, I can use the LabView kit to program it, correct? Can I get some RJ12 connectors, and use my own sensors? What would someone recommend to me to buy to get started in the LabView arena?

Programming the FRC controller should be very similar to programming the NXT - at least in the sense that you'll be given interface VIs for the modules you're going to be working with. Programming a cRIO is the same as programming any other LabVIEW application, the integration of the product is really what makes it so easy to use. I recommend learning how to use the LabVIEW NXT Toolkit and programming the NXT the same way you'd program an FRC robot - as a first task, learn how to drive an NXT using a single analog joystick (the single-stick "arcade" type of drive instead of a dual-stick drive) using the simple motor controls (where you tell each motor how much power to apply). That will teach you 80% of what you need to know to program an FRC controller (assuming you take the time to learn how LabVIEW works while you're doing so).

To use LabVIEW to program the NXT, install LabVIEW, then grab yourself a copy of the LabVIEW NXT Toolkit. Once you get that installed, your LabVIEW installation will have an additional NXT palette with VI's that you need to interact with your NXT. You can get something up and running pretty quickly. Realize there are 2 modes for controlling your NXT - one that is downloaded to the NXT, the other is direct communication of the NXT. I recommend you start with the direct communication, since it's the easiest to get immediate results for testing. Then learn how to create a program that downloads to the NXT.

I really like the NXT as a LabVIEW programming platform, since you can use the "light sensor" interface to get data from any type of simple analog sensor source. I put together a demo for the FRC Championships in 2007 (and kickoff in 2008) that used an FRC KOP Accelerometer and FRC KOP Gyro, I simply cut a couple extension cables in half and used them for inputs to the NXT from the sensors (2 for accelerometer since I wanted both X and Y axis info, and 1 for the gyro). In my code I merely read the "light sensor" value of the ports I connected them to, and viola, I had the data that I could put into a 2D graph, 3D graph, 3D Picture Control, or whatever I wanted. I built the robot, wired the sensors, and programmed the whole thing in the span of half a day - then again, I'm more proficient in LabVIEW than you'll be starting off, but given a little practice you'll get better.

-Danny

[whytheheckme]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

Programming the FRC controller should be very similar to programming the NXT - at least in the sense that you'll be given interface VIs for the modules you're going to be working with. Programming a cRIO is the same as programming any other LabVIEW application, the integration of the product is really what makes it so easy to use. I recommend learning how to use the LabVIEW NXT Toolkit and programming the NXT the same way you'd program an FRC robot - as a first task, learn how to drive an NXT using a single analog joystick (the single-stick "arcade" type of drive instead of a dual-stick drive) using the simple motor controls (where you tell each motor how much power to apply). That will teach you 80% of what you need to know to program an FRC controller (assuming you take the time to learn how LabVIEW works while you're doing so).

To use LabVIEW to program the NXT, install LabVIEW, then grab yourself a copy of the LabVIEW NXT Toolkit. Once you get that installed, your LabVIEW installation will have an additional NXT palette with VI's that you need to interact with your NXT. You can get something up and running pretty quickly. Realize there are 2 modes for controlling your NXT - one that is downloaded to the NXT, the other is direct communication of the NXT. I recommend you start with the direct communication, since it's the easiest to get immediate results for testing. Then learn how to create a program that downloads to the NXT.

I really like the NXT as a LabVIEW programming platform, since you can use the "light sensor" interface to get data from any type of simple analog sensor source. I put together a demo for the FRC Championships in 2007 (and kickoff in 2008) that used an FRC KOP Accelerometer and FRC KOP Gyro, I simply cut a couple extension cables in half and used them for inputs to the NXT from the sensors (2 for accelerometer since I wanted both X and Y axis info, and 1 for the gyro). In my code I merely read the "light sensor" value of the ports I connected them to, and viola, I had the data that I could put into a 2D graph, 3D graph, 3D Picture Control, or whatever I wanted. I built the robot, wired the sensors, and programmed the whole thing in the span of half a day - then again, I'm more proficient in LabVIEW than you'll be starting off, but given a little practice you'll get better.

-Danny

Awesome overview! Thank you very much.

I'm not familiar with the LEGO system at all. Is there an equivalent of an "OI", or do you use your computer via bluetooth to control the bot? Or do you use another NXT via bluetooth?

Again, sorry I'm such a newb in this field. Just trying to get off the ground

Jacob

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by whytheheckme

I'm not familiar with the LEGO system at all. Is there an equivalent of an "OI", or do you use your computer via bluetooth to control the bot? Or do you use another NXT via bluetooth?

Obviously when you play with the NXT in FLL you wouldn't have an OI, everything you do is partially autonomous and you interact with the robot via its screen. But FLL is the exception rather than the rule.

For everything else, yes, you'd want to use SOME kind of laptop/computer interface for an OI, and you'd perform direct communicate with the NXT either via Bluetooth or tether via USB. For demos and stuff where you want to be uber cool, you can certainly use another NXT for controlling your robot using the NXT brick-to-brick communications - I don't recommend it normally, though, since you're eating 2 sets of batteries in that situation instead of 1 set; leave that for PR demo purposes only. Plus, if you want to use a USB joystick (or XBox gamepad via USB, or other USB controllers), all you need to do is plug the USB joystick into your laptop (and make sure all necessary drivers are installed) and then use the joystick VIs provided by LabVIEW and you've got instant programming access to your joystick. Some of the engineers here at NI even got a Wii-mote interface to work with LabVIEW, so I'm interested in playing with that a bit myself.

I recommend you play with a laptop controlling the NXT directly via the USB tether connection with a USB joystick/gamepad, especially if you have any sensors on your NXT you want to play with. Remember that the communication stream is pretty slow when using Bluetooth, so feeding data like accelerometer or gyro data back to the laptop via Bluetooth is not going to be impressive at all, but via USB tether it'll be really nice.

-Danny

[galewind]

When I asked the NI guys, what they said to me is that they're looking into a tiering structure: 1st cRio is free with registration, second comes "highly subsidized", and subsequent ones will be retail price. This is NOT finalized, however, so don't expect it to be the case in the future.

[whytheheckme]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

Obviously when you play with the NXT in FLL you wouldn't have an OI, everything you do is partially autonomous and you interact with the robot via its screen. But FLL is the exception rather than the rule.

For everything else, yes, you'd want to use SOME kind of laptop/computer interface for an OI, and you'd perform direct communicate with the NXT either via Bluetooth or tether via USB. For demos and stuff where you want to be uber cool, you can certainly use another NXT for controlling your robot using the NXT brick-to-brick communications - I don't recommend it normally, though, since you're eating 2 sets of batteries in that situation instead of 1 set; leave that for PR demo purposes only. Plus, if you want to use a USB joystick (or XBox gamepad via USB, or other USB controllers), all you need to do is plug the USB joystick into your laptop (and make sure all necessary drivers are installed) and then use the joystick VIs provided by LabVIEW and you've got instant programming access to your joystick. Some of the engineers here at NI even got a Wii-mote interface to work with LabVIEW, so I'm interested in playing with that a bit myself.

I recommend you play with a laptop controlling the NXT directly via the USB tether connection with a USB joystick/gamepad, especially if you have any sensors on your NXT you want to play with. Remember that the communication stream is pretty slow when using Bluetooth, so feeding data like accelerometer or gyro data back to the laptop via Bluetooth is not going to be impressive at all, but via USB tether it'll be really nice.

-Danny

Sweet.

So I got my hands on an NXT. Should I just simply install LabView, and download the toolkit? Once I do, where should I get started? Is there some kind of getting started guide for LabView+NXT?

Geez I feel like a n00b.

Jacob