Feedback Thread: WPILib

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by kamocat

There are some things that should not require a name, because there cannot be more than one of them. Here's a list:

• Robot Drive
• Watchdog
• DMA
• Air Compressor

Any time you have more than one motor powering the same mechanism, a "Drive" is useful. The TechnoKats 2009 robot's propeller was driven by two CIM motors, and about halfway through the build someone pointed out that the program would look simpler if we replaced the pair of motor control blocks with a single Drive block in a few places.

There is only one watchdog and only one DMA resource available to the user, but keeping the general scheme intact and avoiding special cases seems worthwhile.

The robot rules customarily permit only one air compressor. The software support is not that limited; you can define as many as you want until you run out of relay outputs.