I'm trying not to hate labview but...

[JDNovak]

I agree that the default drive base doesn't work for any of our robots. Three independantly steered wheels require independant control of speed and direction. The default code is only useful as an example of what we need. Our students just finished recreating the Labview code in the release framework this evening and this is what they came up with.

In the Begin .vi they replaced the robotbase open with a PWM open for each motor (8 in all). They also opened the joysticks, analog inputs, etc. Then they bundled all the DevRefs and passed them through to the mode case statement in RobotMain. It sure makes a big mess in the TypeDefs panel and all the front panels but it looks like the only way.

Then they unbundled the DefRefs in the Teleop .vi and inserted all the steering code before setting the speed of each motor. This is their second attempt to control the entire robot and it is beginning to make sense enough to be able to understand the layout even though teleop is over two screens high.

I hope to post the code soon but they took it with them tonight to clean up. If you are interested I'll try to clarify some of this when I see the code again.

The short answer is there is no shortcut. I was able to write the equivelant code in the C++ iterative example a lot faster but it isn't as impressive and the kids really get more excited seeing the Labview code work. I still relate to assembly language better than object oriented languages.