Unclaassified: Information about the 2010 control system

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by Zorkinian

The Beta teams are free to share a lot of information about the beta system, but we're supposed to withhold the actual bits of something (documentation, code, programs) until the end of the beta/when FIRST tells us to. This is mostly a version control issue - what if we shared some code or documents on ChiefDelphi, but those libraries became deprecated or the document referred to things that no longer exist? Teams searching for help might find those out-of-date items, and troubleshooting the issues that come from that would not be pleasant.

Thank you for the explanation. It would be useful to try and flesh out the changes in LabVIEW (or C++) so that mentors can start teaching. I would rather not start with last year's base code if this year's is significantly different. Is there a date when the shroud will be lifted?

[Greg McKaskle]

I think it would be cool for a beta team to explain what they had to do, or chose to do to last year's code. They can use this as the backdrop to review the new things introduced in the beta thus far. Not having signed beta stuff, I hope I'm not suggesting anything that you aren't supposed to do.

In general, I think most training from last year should still be pretty accurate.

Greg McKaskle

[Jon236]

Thanks Greg!

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Jon236

It would be useful to try and flesh out the changes in LabVIEW (or C++) so that mentors can start teaching. I would rather not start with last year's base code if this year's is significantly different.

We LabVIEW beta testers don't yet know what the final code template will be. As issues are found and addressed, things change. One thing I'm reasonably certain of is that teams will be strongly encouraged to start with something that looks a lot like last year's "advanced" template.

There's a new mechanism for dealing with the clutter of reference clusters having to snake all over the block diagram. Since we don't yet know whether what we have is going to be the final form, it's probably best not to share too much detail about it, but it resembles a kind of global variables that are simpler to create.

[Zorkinian]

So far, while there have been some iterative improvements to LabVIEW code (as Alan mentions, we're currently testing something that should make managing references much easier), there are more similarities than differences thus far.

Our team is currently in the process of rewriting our 2009 program in the 2010 framework, keeping logs of what's different as well as what has remained the same. Once we're done, we plan to gather all the info into some kind of "delta" document, detailing the various changes and upgrades we've seen in the 2010 system. I imagine most other beta teams are doing the same.

[Tom Line]

To follow up, we just completed transfering our 2009 code into 2010 and getting it functional.

The new method of opening and referencing devices it a large improvement. Everything else worked pretty much out-of-the-box. The only other difference that comes to mind functionality-wise is the messages that you send to the DS. I can tell you right now that the DS screen is very small at 7 inches - and the text that you can send to the driver message display is equally small. Smaller and harder to read than the quickbyte. I think that we (my team) will modify the dashboard to make a larger and easier to read section since we use that for feedback from our autonomous settings.

There are some quirks to the DS that you need to get used to - the order the joysticks number themselves in is a bit problematic, though they give an easy way to reorder them. If you don't have the hub and joysticks plugged in when you run the DS, it will not detect them if you plug them in after the fact. In addition, you may have to pay attention to updating the DS software and the Crio image - the latest beta update broke camera communications if you didn't image the crio AND install and use the new DS software.

It's nothing insurmountable, and it's been great fun (and a lot of work) to watch the 1718 controls team figure out the issues and keep moving ahead. We're looking forward to hosting our seminar with our co-team 2604: it's going to be fun and exciting to show off the new code.

[Kingofl337]

To answer John's question, to run C++ we just updated to the latest FPGA image and updated to the new version of WPILib that supports the new FPGA image. Done.

So, everything worked from a C++ standpoint right off the bat.

We are testing Java but, our code from last year is C++ so we have been able to switch back and forth for testing.

[Russ Beavis]

Does the Classmate have a video output port? If so, plugging in a larger monitor might be helpful when prototyping but FIRST does not typically provide AC at the Driver Stations.

Russ

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Russ Beavis

Does the Classmate have a video output port? If so, plugging in a larger monitor might be helpful when prototyping but FIRST does not typically provide AC at the Driver Stations.

Russ

Yes, both versions of the Classmate have VGA ports. And, for that matter, spare USB ports that would support a full-sized keyboard.

[Greg McKaskle]

Remember that the Classmates being beta tested aren't the same as the ones that will be in the KOP.

Greg McKaskle

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

Remember that the Classmates being beta tested aren't the same as the ones that will be in the KOP.

Greg McKaskle

Good point - there is a version of the Clamshell with no VGA port.

[Gdeaver]

Has anyone tried non KOP joysticks or controllers? Our team's off season drive project could benefit from a 3 axis joystick. There are 3 axis joysticks that do not need a drive and use the default xp driver. Any indications that they would work? Would they map into Labview?

[rwood359]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

Has anyone tried non KOP joysticks or controllers? Our team's off season drive project could benefit from a 3 axis joystick. There are 3 axis joysticks that do not need a drive and use the default xp driver. Any indications that they would work? Would they map into Labview?

We have tested the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_oh_product
Just plugged it in in place of the KOP joystick. It uses every axis and button allowed in LabVIEW.

[Gdeaver]

How does that work with Labview. Where does the Z axis and throttle get mapped to. The VI I've seen only has an X and Y output.
Thanks

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

How does that work with Labview. Where does the Z axis and throttle get mapped to. The VI I've seen only has an X and Y output.
Thanks

If you undundle the 'Get Joystick' vi axis cluster output, you will find all the axes available to you.