NI Week

[rfolea]

NI Week is August 5-7.

I see they have seminars on programming the cRio via Labview (and a million other topics).

http://www.ni.com/niweek/

Does anyone know if there is a discount or other pass for folks involved in FIRST? Seems like they would want to encourage that ...

(There is an academic discount - can us non-academic mentors that?)

[Kevin Sevcik]

Before you start shelling out cash for this, remember that programming on the FRC controller isn't going to be the same as programming on the cRIO. For instance, the second class on FPGA programming will be completely useless to you next year. The first class on Real Time programming could potentially be useful, but it depends on the structure of the code that NI, WPI, and FIRST lock us into. If they declare that thou shalt have only one user thread and it shall have the lowest priority... Well then a lot of threading and other things you'll be learning aren't going to be incredibly useful. Finally, the class obviously isn't going to have any info whatsoever on the actual WPI/NI/FRC libraries, which are going to be a large percentage of the actual programming.

So I'm not saying it's useless.... but if you're going to need to fly there, rent a hotel, register, etc.... well your money might be better spent on a LEGO NXT and the restricted version of Labview you can use to program it so you can get more hands on in depth experience with Labview style coding. I think several months of hacking on a LEGO NXT are likely to be more useful in the long run than a few hours crammed full of Labview RT details.

[tdlrali]

We should just send the wranglers and have them transcribe everything for us here on CD

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

Before you start shelling out cash for this, remember that programming on the FRC controller isn't going to be the same as programming on the cRIO ... I'm not saying it's useless [,] but if you're going to need to fly there, rent a hotel, register, etc... your money might be better spent on a LEGO NXT and ... [using] Labview ... to program it so you can get more hands on in depth experience with Labview style coding. I think several months of hacking on a LEGO NXT are likely to be more useful in the long run than a few hours crammed full of Labview RT details.

I fully agree with Kevin on this one. However, NI-Week is incredibly fun and it's always great to see the latest and greatest of what NI is coming out with next (and cool user applications of LabVIEW and our embedded hardware). If you can come, you can get a "tradeshow" pass for free which lets you into keynotes and the show floor for free; just no sessions. The hands-on sessions always fill up solid, though, and the sessions don't necessarily *teach* you how to use our products - that's what customer education cla$$es are for.

-Danny

[Greg McKaskle]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

... programming on the FRC controller isn't going to be the same as programming on the cRIO. ... the second class on FPGA programming will be completely useless to you next year. ... the code that NI, WPI, and FIRST lock us into. If they declare that thou shalt have only one user thread and it shall have the lowest priority... Well then a lot of threading and other things you'll be learning aren't going to be incredibly useful. Finally, the class obviously isn't going to have any info whatsoever on the actual WPI/NI/FRC libraries, which are going to be a large percentage of the actual programming.

... I think several months of hacking on a LEGO NXT are likely to be more useful in the long run than a few hours crammed full of Labview RT details.

I completely agree with your last two points. NIWeek sessions and training will not cover the robotics libraries for FRC, and boning up on LV-NXT or RobotC-NXT are good ways to gain experience.

On the other hand. NIWeek is several things smashed together.
1. A large tradeshow exhibiition: more than a hundred booths of cool sensors, instruments, and SW tools with knowledgeable people there to answer questions, demo, etc. Some pretty cool robotics stuff will also be on display, I've heard. By the way, some of these companies may already sponsor FIRST teams, but what about those that don't, ... yet.

2. Keynotes: interesting speakers, interesting perspectives, cool demos -- mostly.

3. Tech sessions: presentations covering use of NI products, problem areas, etc. Lots of really technical stuff here, especially in signal processing, and vision.

4. Training: These are different from the sessions in that they are hands-on access to an NI tool with an instructor and something to measure.

5. Engineers from all over the world, gathering together, doing engineering stuff, networking, having fun.

I have been to a number of industry shows, and I still think the mix at NIWeek is the coolest for most anybody not scared by engineering stuff. As Danny pointed out, some of it is free, some of it is inexpensive. I don't think the cRIO training will really give anyone more than a few hours head start on the season. I think the tradeshow and maybe some tech sessions would be worth more.

So, if NIWeek is in the neighborhood, or if your summer vacation would like to include some geek fun with a hill country hike and swim, I'd recommend it.

A brief comment on the cRIO and FRC controller programming differences. I really don't think you have much to worry about. Limits are basically to cover safety issues. If you want to spawn a thousand threads at high priority and turn the brick into -- well -- a brick, it doesn't affect safety, so you will have that ability. And you might even be able to use them for good effect.

Rest assured, the tools aren't being dumbing down by taking lots of stuff out permanently.

Greg McKaskle

[JaneYoung]

If anyone comes to Austin for a visit, there should be a few locals around *cough* that would love to help make your visit fun and enjoyable. Austin is awesome.

[lynca]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

I fully agree with Kevin on this one. However, NI-Week is incredibly fun and it's always great to see the latest and greatest of what NI is coming out with next (and cool user applications of LabVIEW and our embedded hardware). If you can come, you can get a "tradeshow" pass for free which lets you into keynotes and the show floor for free; just no sessions. The hands-on sessions always fill up solid, though, and the sessions don't necessarily *teach* you how to use our products - that's what customer education cla$$es are for.

-Danny

I'll just add that I have already started hacking around with the Labview Toolkit on the NXT and this helped me get up to graphical programming speeds *cough* !

just to add ,

Virginia Tech usually has a few of their awesome robots there at NI week.